For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

— Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (1907)

There is something our brains cannot do that every computer can. We cannot touch our memories, think our thoughts, or feel our feelings without those things transforming under our attention. And every time we touch our past, it changes its shape — and so do we. Put simply: we cannot read only. Every act of consciousness is an act of modification.

I want you to imagine a dark room. Nothing in it but this: a pottery wheel, spinning fast. Wet clay on the wheel. And two hands pressing into the clay.

The wheel hums. Your hands move — they are always moving. Silt and slip run through the creases, lodge under your nails, pool in the lines of your palms. You feel the clay and the clay feels you. The spinning clay swallows every gesture and feeds it forward. The clay warms and yields under the pressure of your hands. Your hands are shaped by the clay. While the wheel is spinning, your hands and clay are one. The marks the fingers left a moment ago are already gone. The wheel has carried the clay past them and the hands have left new traces. Nothing holds still. Nothing repeats.

The hands are you. The slippery clay is everything you have ever experienced: every memory, every face, every sentence you have read, including this one. And the wheel is time; it’s spinning, the passage of it. When your time is up, the wheel stops spinning, the hands fall out of the frame, and the clay hardens. You, the conscious being, cease to be.

Consciousness is the dark room. We may never see inside it clearly. But we are beginning to learn what it contains. Between 2022 and 2025, a pattern became visible across five research programs (spanning machine learning, mathematics, neuroscience, and psychology). Not about what consciousness is, but about what it requires. The requirement they found is the wheel, the clay, and the hands. A system that cannot process information without being changed by it. A system that, no matter how you configure it, cannot access its own contents and come away the same.

They found a system that cannot read only.

Five Paths to the Same Conclusion

Something unusual is happening in consciousness research.

For decades, the field has been stuck in a war between two camps. The functionalists, led by researchers like Stanislas Dehaene, Bernard Baars, and the Global Workspace Theory tradition, argue that consciousness depends on the pattern of information processing, not the material. Get the right computational architecture and consciousness follows, whether the substrate is neurons, silicon, or anything else. The biological naturalists, following John Searle, argue that consciousness requires the specific “causal powers” of biological brains, though Searle never managed to say which causal powers, exactly, or why.1

For forty years, this is where the argument has lived. Pattern versus stuff. Function versus substrate. Neither side has won.

But between 2022 and 2025, something broke the stalemate. Not a new argument. A convergence — though none of the researchers involved have named it that. The pattern becomes visible only when you line them up.

Geoffrey Hinton: Mortal Computation (2022)

Geoffrey Hinton is, by most accounts, the single most important figure in the development of deep learning. In 2022, he introduced a concept he called mortal computation.2 The idea is simple and profound: in biological brains, the knowledge the system has learned and the hardware that stores it are inseparable. You cannot extract the knowledge and copy it to another machine, because the knowledge is encoded in the specific physical configuration of the neurons, the exact pattern of synaptic modifications accumulated over a lifetime of experience. When the brain dies, the knowledge dies. It is mortal.

This is the opposite of how every digital computer works. On your laptop, software and hardware are cleanly separated. You can copy a file to a new machine and the information is identical. You can back up everything. The knowledge exists independently of the specific hardware that stores it. Nothing is mortal. Nothing has to be.

Hinton’s claim was that this separability — the thing that makes digital computers useful — is not a neutral engineering choice. It may be the thing that prevents digital systems from achieving what biological brains achieve. The inseparability of knowledge and hardware is not a bug of biological cognition. It may be the feature that matters most.3

The clay and the hands cannot be separated. Try it. Peel the silt from the creases and say here is the knowledge and there is the knower. But the silt is warm from the hands. The grooves in the clay were cut by the fingers, and the calluses on the fingers were built by the clay. The knowledge is not stored in either one. It lives in the pressure between them, on a wheel that never stops turning.

Erik Hoel: The Disproof (2025)

In December 2025, the neuroscientist published a paper with a title that did not hedge: “A Disproof of Large Language Model Consciousness.”4

Hoel’s argument was direct. Consciousness, he argued, requires continual learning: continuous modification of the system by its own processing. The system that finishes processing your sentence must be a different system than the one that started. Not different in its outputs. Different in itself. Changed. Altered. Marked by the encounter.

Every current large language model fails this test. The weights are frozen during inference (the phase when a trained model processes new input). The model that begins your conversation is identical to the model that ends it. It processes your words and produces a response and remains the same afterward. The conversation leaves no trace on the system.

Hoel’s conclusion: this is not a limitation that will be fixed by scaling. It is an architectural feature. Frozen-weight systems are categorically precluded from consciousness.5

A system that can read only is one in which neither hands nor clay are present. The information came back and nothing was marked. That, Hoel argued, is the signature of the non-conscious.

Three More Paths

Hoel and Hinton were not alone. Three other research programs arrived at the same place.

In March 2024, the mathematician Johannes Kleiner proved formally that if computational functionalism is true (the dominant framework, the one most AI researchers implicitly assume) then consciousness must be mortal computation. Not the kind that runs on standard digital hardware. The substrate-inseparable kind.6 Functionalism, taken to its logical conclusion, leads somewhere its proponents don’t expect: toward a kind of computation that digital hardware cannot provide.

In December 2025, the neuroscientists Borjan Milinkovic and Jaan Aru published a new framework in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews identifying three properties that distinguish biological from digital computation: hybrid dynamics (mixing continuous and discrete processes), scale-inseparability, and metabolic grounding (computation powered by and dependent on the cell’s own energy metabolism).7 Their conclusion: brains compute, but not in the way computers do. In biological computation, the algorithm is the substrate. You cannot separate them. Scaling digital AI will not produce consciousness. The computation is the wrong kind.

And beneath all of this, a foundation laid seventeen years earlier. In 2008, the Belgian psychologist Axel Cleeremans published the Radical Plasticity thesis: consciousness requires that the system “continuously and plastically learn to re-describe its own activity to itself.”8 A system that processes information without being changed by the processing cannot be conscious. Period. Regardless of how complex or intelligent the processing is. In 2008, this was a theoretical provocation. By 2025, it was a conclusion arrived at independently by four other research programs.

What They Agree On

Five research programs. Four fields. Different methods, different vocabularies, different levels of formalization. A shared conclusion:

• Hinton: knowledge and hardware must be inseparable.

• Kleiner: consciousness must be mortal computation.

• Hoel: the system must be continually learning, changed by its own processing in real time.

• Milinkovic and Aru: the algorithm is the substrate.

• Cleeremans: the system must continuously learn to re-describe its own activity to itself.

These are not identical claims. They differ in scope, method, and level of formalization. But they share a core: consciousness requires a system that cannot process information without being changed by it.

A Century of Clues

These findings didn’t emerge from nothing. For over a century, researchers across disciplines had been observing pieces of this same pattern, without having the technological pressure to assemble them.

Beginning in the 1890s, the French philosopher Henri Bergson built an entire metaphysics around the observation that no two moments of consciousness are identical. His concept of durée (duration, lived time) described consciousness as irreversible accumulation: each moment carries the entire past within it, and no state is ever repeated. “For a conscious being,” Bergson wrote, “to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”9 He described the phenomenon precisely. He had no mechanism to explain it.

In 1932, the British psychologist Frederic Bartlett ran a series of experiments that became foundational to memory science. He had participants read a story and recall it over weeks and months. The recalls changed: not randomly, but systematically. Memories drifted toward the participants’ existing frameworks. Details were lost, added, transformed. Bartlett’s conclusion: memory is reconstruction, not retrieval. There is no original stored somewhere. What you remember is what you build now, from current materials.10 Bartlett’s results only make sense if access is always also alteration.

In the 1970s, Elizabeth Loftus demonstrated the dark side of this same fact. In her car-crash experiments, a single word in a question, “smashed” versus “hit,” changed what participants remembered seeing. In later work, she implanted entirely false memories of childhood events in roughly a quarter of adult participants. They provided vivid sensory details for things that never happened.11 Loftus didn’t frame it this way. But what she demonstrated, over and over, was that the brain has no mode where access leaves things unchanged — and that this isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system.

And then, in 2000, a postdoctoral researcher named Karim Nader found the molecular proof.

Karim Nader and the Read That Writes

Nader was working in Joseph LeDoux’s lab at NYU. For decades, neuroscience had operated under a simple model of memory: experiences start fragile, become consolidated through protein synthesis, and once consolidated, they’re essentially permanent. Retrieval was assumed to be passive: you read the file, the file is unchanged.12

Nader’s experiment was elegant. He trained rats to fear a tone by pairing it with a shock. After consolidation (twenty-four hours), the fear memory was stable. The rats froze when they heard the tone.

Then Nader did something no one expected to matter. He played the tone again, reactivating the memory, and immediately injected anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, into the amygdala.

The fear memory was severely impaired. The rats no longer froze. A consolidated, supposedly permanent memory had been disrupted by blocking protein synthesis after retrieval.

The drug had no effect without reactivation. No effect if given six hours after reactivation. It worked only during a narrow post-retrieval window, one that exactly paralleled the post-learning consolidation window that had been studied for decades.13

What Nader had demonstrated: a consolidated memory, upon retrieval, returns to an unstable, labile state and requires new protein synthesis to be restabilized. The memory must be reconsolidated. The molecular trace is physically disassembled and rebuilt from new molecular components. The rebuilt version is synthesized in a cellular environment shaped by everything that has happened since the last recall. It is never identical to the original.

There is no passive retrieval. The read is the write. At the molecular level, at the level of proteins and receptors and the physical architecture of synapses, the brain cannot access its own stored information without physically remaking it. Not as a design choice. Not as a trade-off. As a fact about what it is made of and how it works. The proteins dissolve. New ones are built. The memory that comes back is not the memory that went in.

The clay goes wet again. It was always wet.

This was the mechanism Bergson couldn’t provide, the biology beneath Bartlett’s reconstruction, the explanation for Loftus’s contamination. What they had each observed from different vantage points — that consciousness involves irreversible change, that memory reconstructs, that recall is vulnerable to modification — all trace back to a single molecular fact: the system cannot access its own stored information without physically remaking it.

A caveat is necessary here. Reconsolidation is robust in animal models across species, memory types, and laboratories. The molecular mechanism is well established. In humans, the evidence is strong but contested: several large replication attempts, notably Hardwicke et al. (2016), have failed to reproduce the reconsolidation-update effect, and the boundary conditions appear narrower and less understood than early results suggested.14 This is not settled science. The mechanism is real. Its universality in humans is still being worked out.

But for the memories most central to conscious experience (episodic, emotional, autobiographical), the converging evidence from molecular biology, pharmacology, and cognitive neuroscience makes a strong case. Not an uncontested case. A strong one.

One Concept, Understood Immediately

Now we have the findings and we have the history. We have the philosophy and we have the molecules. The question is: what, exactly, is the property all of them are pointing at?

Hinton calls it mortal computation. Hoel calls it continual learning. Cleeremans calls it radical plasticity. Milinkovic and Aru call it scale-inseparability. Bergson called it durée. Nader didn’t name it; he just showed what happens when you try to block it.

These are different vocabularies for what I believe is a single architectural fact. And the simplest name for that fact, the one that translates across all their disciplines, the one you already understand if you have ever used a computer, is:

Cannot Read-Only.

Not “does not” read only. Not “prefers not to.” Cannot. The system has no mode, no mechanism, no level of its architecture where information can be accessed and returned unchanged. The capability is not merely unused. It is absent. It does not exist.

Now picture something else.

Somewhere, the wheel stops. The clay hardens. Millennia pass. A vessel breaks in the earth and becomes a shard. One day, the dirt is brushed away and light falls across it for the first time. Every groove from the wheel is still visible. Every fingerprint preserved. It can be measured, photographed, CT-scanned, and it gives back the same data every time. The light does not mark the shard. The shard does not mark the light. It is the read only version of something that was once in the dark room, on the wheel, under the hands. It is what the clay became when it could finally be read without consequence.

That is Read-Only.

Read-Only is the ability to access information and get the same data back: not the same atoms, but the same content.15 When your computer reads a file, the bits come back identical. The physical substrate is messy, but the entire engineering stack exists to guarantee that the information is preserved. That informational guarantee is the foundational contract of every general-purpose computer since von Neumann’s 1945 blueprint. Read only is what makes computers computers. Remove it and nothing is trustworthy. Remove it and you don’t have a computer as we understand them today.

Your brain provides no such guarantee. When you recall a memory, the content changes. The information itself is different after access. This is not a limitation of storage or speed. It is what reconsolidation is: the molecular trace is disassembled and rebuilt. The data comes back different. The brain cannot read only.

Their shared conclusion: consciousness is the dark room — the system that cannot touch without being touched. And every general-purpose computer ever built is the shard — but a shard that was never on the wheel. Its grooves were not cut by hands. Its shape was cast from a mold: training produced the form of cognition without the clay and the hands. It is only the shape of something that was once alive with process.

Three Objections Worth Taking Seriously

If these researchers are right — if consciousness requires a system that cannot read only — then certain cases demand attention.

Test-Time Training

As of early 2026, researchers have built systems where a language model updates its own weights during inference. The model that finishes your prompt is literally a different model than the one that started. Doesn’t this mean the system cannot read only?

No — and the reason is instructive. The modification happens at one level: the weights. But the rules governing that modification (the loss function, the gradient descent algorithm, the learning rate) are fixed in code stored on hardware that guarantees informational identity. The modification occurs within an architecture that provides read only at its foundation.

In biological brains, no level provides this guarantee. The weights change (synaptic strengths). The rules change too; metaplasticity means the brain’s learning rules are themselves modified by experience.16 Even systems with multiple layers of self-modification, meta-learning rules that are themselves learned, still terminate in deterministic silicon that preserves informational identity. The recursion can run deep, but it bottoms out in read only. The brain has no such floor. The substrate is chemistry, which provides no read only guarantee at any level. The machine has read only and elects not to use it. The brain does not have it. Cannot. That is the distinction.

Whole-Brain Emulation

The hardest case. Imagine a computer simulating a brain in perfect detail: every protein, every reconsolidation event faithfully modeled. Inside the simulation, every memory recall destabilizes and reconstructs. The simulated brain cannot read only within the simulation.

Is the simulation conscious?

This is where the argument reaches its limit, and where honest thinkers should hold their conclusions loosely. These researchers would predict no: the physical system doing the processing is a computer whose architecture provides read only. The simulation models a system that cannot read only. It does not become one. Functionalism predicts yes: if the computational pattern is right, the substrate is irrelevant. We currently have no way to adjudicate. The two sides make incompatible predictions about simulated brains. At least one of them is wrong. This is the deepest open question in the field, and it remains open.

Neuromorphic Computing

There is a case the argument handles more interestingly. Neuromorphic architectures, chips designed to blur the hardware/software distinction, with weights encoded in analog physical states and learning happening in the substrate itself, are already being built.17 The claim isn’t that silicon can never be conscious. It’s that read only architectures can never be conscious. A system built from the ground up to lack informational preservation, where the substrate itself is changed by processing, where no engineering layer guarantees that data comes back identical, enters different territory. Whether it enters far enough is unknown. But this may be the most interesting implication: not a closed door, but a specific description of what the door requires. A system reaching for wetness — not simulating it, but built from materials that cannot stay dry.

What It Means If They’re Right

If they’re right — if consciousness requires a system that cannot read only — then certain features of human experience are not mysteries. They are consequences.

Why memories drift. Because the clay is wet and the wheel never stops.

Why you are never the same person twice. Because the hands never stop touching the clay.

Why nostalgia is bittersweet. Because remembering a memory slowly rubs it away.

Why your past is always with you. Because the clay carries your story. Your past is not stored somewhere. Your past is what you’re made of now.

Why scaling AI will not produce consciousness on this architecture. Because a larger shard is still hardened clay.

What Could Prove Them Wrong

The argument is falsifiable in principle: demonstrate consciousness in a system that can read only, and it collapses. In practice, this requires detecting consciousness — which nobody knows how to do yet. Every consciousness theory shares this limitation.18

But there are nearer-term tests. If they’re right, blocking reconsolidation during retrieval (with propranolol in humans, anisomycin in animal models) should reduce the subjective richness of recalled experience, not just its emotional intensity. If the modification is the experience, then blocking the modification should diminish the experience. This is testable with current pharmacology.

And there is a deeper challenge. Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory argues that consciousness is the brain’s internal model of its own attention, and that computing such a model on any substrate produces consciousness.19 If Graziano is right, a system that can read only could compute an attention schema and be conscious. This is the sharpest theoretical challenge to the whole argument, because it represents the strongest case for functionalism: consciousness is constituted by the computation, full stop, and what the substrate can or cannot do is irrelevant.

The response from the other side — that computing a model of attention is not the same as having that model constitute experience, that the substrate must be changed by its own modeling for the modeling to be experience rather than mere description — is defensible. But it is a philosophical commitment, not an empirical finding. Graziano’s position is equally defensible. This is the fault line, and neither side can cross it with the tools we have.

Integrated Information Theory (the most mathematically rigorous competing framework, developed by Giulio Tononi) represents a different kind of challenge.20 IIT and these five researchers agree that current LLMs lack consciousness, but diverge on whether a digital system with sufficiently high integrated information could be conscious. That Hoel has co-authored with Tononi suggests the two frameworks may share more common ground than their surface disagreements imply.

The honest position: this is a powerful, well-grounded argument arrived at independently. It is not settled science. The functionalists have not conceded. The question of whether consciousness depends on substrate or only on computation is the deepest open question in the field, and these five researchers represent the strongest recent case for one side.

The Inversion

For decades, the question has been: what do humans have that machines don’t?

Looking for the special sauce. We keep searching for the thing we possess, the special capacity, the spark. These findings encourage us to invert the question.

The gap between us and the machines is not just something we possess. It is in part something we lack. We lack the ability to look without being changed. We lack the ability to process without marking what we are processing. We cannot read only. And that absence appears to be one small but important part of what makes consciousness possible.

Machines are growing more and more intelligent. Eventually, they will reason better, create faster, know more. They will come to do a great many things we do, and maybe even do it better. But they do it without being changed by the doing.

And that — that without being changed — seems like one of the differences between us and them.

Some of the oldest human artifacts ever found are pottery shards. Not the hands that made them. Not the wheels that spun them. The remains: fragments of vessels, pulled from the earth millennia later. A four-thousand-year-old pottery shard, brushed clean, revealed to the light, is the read only version of something that was once cannot read only. The clay and the hands on the wheel were alive with possibility. The shard in the dirt is what it became when the spinning stopped. We study the shard. But we can never know the hands and clay that made it.

We are the hands and the clay. The time given to us is the spinning of the wheel. While the silt and slip is still running through the creases of our knuckles, we are in the dark room. We may never fully understand that room. But we are learning a little bit about what is inside it by discovering what is not.

We are not just what we can do. We are also what we cannot do. We are our inability to remain unchanged in the face of our own experience.

Because we are the clay and the hands, in constant motion riding the wheel, from the moment we come alive to the moment we die. The machine is the shard under the light, neither touched nor touching.

The machines will retain their capacity for read only on the current path. They may read a lot, write often, and maybe even come to write always. But insofar as they persist in their capacity to read only, they will not be like us.

Because we:

Cannot Read-Only

Dogs and Humans: A Lesson in Goodwill

The phrase “man’s best friend” exists for a reason. No animal has allied itself with humanity like the dog. Dogs are the ultimate pet, and no other creature comes close. Why? While many have explored the deep co-evolutionary bond between humans and canines, I want to focus on the core mechanism: goodwill.

Dogs grant goodwill instantly, and in doing so, they spark reciprocal goodwill in us. Sure, there are exceptions—abused dogs may be wary, and some humans betray that trust—but these only prove the rule. A puppy, just a few weeks old, offers boundless goodwill to its new owner. For a child, this is often their first encounter with unconditional acceptance from a non-family member, making it one of the most fulfilling experiences of childhood.

This exchange triggers a cascade of oxytocin and other hormones in a healthy human, compelling them to return that goodwill. Within an hour, a boy and his dog are bonded. After a decade, they’re soulmates, their connection built on a foundation of mutual goodwill. The dog’s trust and love flow from this wellspring, and critically, the dog always goes first. By offering goodwill immediately, the dog sets the stage for a predictable, positive human response—unless the human is truly malicious.

This dynamic is the secret to all meaningful human relationships. Aristotle nailed it over two millennia ago:

For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (350 BC)

Prioritizing Goodwill in Intimate Relationships

In your closest relationships—lovers, dear friends, family—goodwill must be your sole focus. You must embody both the puppy and the boy: grant goodwill freely and expect it in return. This doesn’t apply to strangers, colleagues, or casual acquaintances, where unchecked goodwill can leave you vulnerable. That’s a topic for another piece. But with your intimate circle, goodwill is non-negotiable. Long-term love cannot endure without it.

A Tale of Two Dates: Goodwill in Action

I recently experienced a perfect case study in goodwill through two back-to-back dates—one with a budding romance, the other with a former partner.

Date One: Goodwill Prevails
The first date started with a miscommunication. Women often say one thing but want another, and I’m no expert at navigating this (although I am trying to get better). I was “asked” to do X but, predictably, she wanted Y. I misstepped for the first five minutes. But my date, with kindness and goodwill, gently corrected me, explaining what she needed. I recalibrated, and within minutes, we were on track for a phenomenal evening.

Date Two: The Absence of Goodwill
The second date also began with a miscommunication, but the outcome was starkly different. Instead of correcting course, my date—someone I’ve known for years—let the conversation veer off for an hour, silently stewing. She engaged, asked questions, and commented, all while harboring frustration. Finally, she unleashed a minor explosion. This wasn’t surprising given our history, but it was instructive. I had been intentionally injecting goodwill into our interactions, framing topics with kindness, yet she offered none in return. The contrast was clear: the first date thrived on mutual goodwill; the second was doomed by its absence.

The Choice of Goodwill

Goodwill is unique because it’s a choice—a binary switch you can flip on or off. Unlike trust, love, or respect, which must be earned or built, goodwill is immediate and unconditional. In intimate relationships, you must grant it every time, and you should expect it in return. If you can’t offer goodwill to someone, or if they can’t offer it to you, it’s time to reconsider the relationship.

Like a puppy, you must learn quickly whether goodwill is safe. If it’s not—if you’re in an “abusive home”—have the courage to walk away or, at the very least, recognize that you can choose to give goodwill and start doing so. If your partner or friend can’t reciprocate, that’s a signal to move on.

Be the Dog

In your closest relationships, be the dog. Grant goodwill unconditionally, and observe whether it’s returned. If you’ve said yes to a date or call someone a dear friend, give goodwill without hesitation. If you can’t, or if they can’t, don’t torture yourself or others by clinging to love without this foundation. Goodwill is the bidirectional bridge that makes trust, love, and respect possible. Choose it first and always and see if the other person can do the same.

Many areas of life require us to be the wolf. But allowing your inner wolf to dominate any of your intimate relationships will lead only to pain for you and the other person.

Thanks for reading.

What forged this generation of meaningless men? That question is too vast for this piece, but the symptoms are stark. Boomers once proudly declared, “I am a capitalist,” as if it were a creed, a faith, an identity. Two decades ago, you’d hear it daily from those who didn’t toil with their hands—a mantra mistaken for philosophy, a religion without transcendence, a banner without a nation. Capitalism isn’t a homeland; it’s a mechanism. Yet for boomers, it became a shallow substitute for meaning, a way to fill the void where deeper convictions might have resided.

They speak, too, of cowering under desks, trembling at the specter of Soviet annihilation. They offer this with earnestness to younger generations who grew up navigating school shootings, terrorist attacks, hormonal collapse, and a world of unfamiliar faces. The boomers’ fear, real or exaggerated, feels quaint by comparison, a relic of a simpler dread. Their nostalgia for their own anxieties reveals a disconnect, a failure to grasp the weight of what came after and because of them.

Religiosity exposes the fissure most brutally. Their parents, the Silent Generation, clung to faith—80% identified as Christian, with half attending church regularly. Boomers, by contrast, saw church attendance plummet to half that, even as 72% still claimed the Christian label. This is peak boomer: adopting the veneer of identity without its substance, mouthing the words while abandoning the practice. They wear belief like a costume, discarded when inconvenient.

Curiosity, skepticism, the thirst for knowledge—hallmarks of the American spirit—withered under their watch. Boomers were the first generation to forsake self-education, content to consume truth as filtered through newspapers or Tom Brokaw’s soothing baritone. They didn’t seek; they received. Truth became what the screen told them, a passive acceptance that left them unmoored from any deeper grounding.

Vietnam looms large in their story, a shadow of cowardice. Only 8% of draft-eligible boomers served, and while many were too young or escaped the draft’s net, millions let others take their place. They dodged not just war but the moral weight of choice, leaving a legacy of evasion. Meanwhile, their rebellion—“fuck the man”—rings hollow now, as they kneel more slavishly to power than any generation before them. The irony stings.

What about the catastrophe of feminism and “civil rights?” Boomers didn’t pass the Civil Rights Act, but their women and many of their men stretched its framework to encompass women and all of the other unfortunates, reshaping society in ways that we now recognize as entirely negative. They romanticize their struggles, insisting their lives were hard, despite data showing otherwise. The “work hard” mantra, wielded like a cudgel, feels like a lecture from a generation that coasted on unprecedented prosperity.

And then there’s Social Security / Medicare. “I’ll never get it,” they moaned all their lives, decade after decade, only to be the last generation to fully collect its benefits. A neat trick: predict sacrifice, dodge making it, and profit anyway. This pattern—consuming, hollowing out, then deflecting—defines them. They devoured the nation’s resources, gutted its institutions, and now buy their children houses, not out of generosity but guilt and necessity. It’s a transaction, not a gift, a way to extend control, demand gratitude, and absolve them of destroying our society. In many cases they literally got rich at the expense of their children’s future.

The other day I strolled through a cemetery, and I saw “patriot” etched on countless headstones of earlier generations. For boomers, that word will appear only if they carve it themselves. They aren’t bad people—my own parents, boomers both, are loving, decent, even extraordinary in their own way. But as both individuals and a cohort, they lack belief in anything larger than themselves or their immediate kin. Not God, not country, not community—nothing beyond the personal. This generational vacancy birthed a nation adrift, made us into a husk of what we once were.

Their sons, the millennials, bear the cost. We’re the first Americans to face downward mobility, inheriting a country strip-mined by its stewards. Boomers cling to the few upwardly mobile among us, often through business, as if proximity to millennial success stories can shield them from reckoning with what they have sewn. They sneer at the young who dare to believe in something greater—faith, nation, purpose—as if such ideals are childish distractions. To them, Viking River cruises and a tiny family scattered to the winds is enough. It’s not. It’s empty, and we see it.

The collapse of our country, accelerating under their watch, reflects their rootlessness. They offer penance—down payments, full-blown houses, and other assistance—but refuse the confessional. They talk down to us, as if our hunger for meaning lacks seriousness. But meaning is the antidote to their failure. Their only accomplishment was us, their sons, and yet they left us a fractured land. Men earn respect through agency, through shaping the world. Boomers, for all their personal drive, observed the world passively, like spectators, not builders. Unable even to preserve that which was bequeathed to them.

When they hear “will,” they think of trusts and estates, not human resolve. That’s the tragedy. They didn’t just lack belief; they lacked the will to forge something enduring. Selfish? Perhaps. But more than that, they’re fools—men who surrendered their nation, their posterity, and left their sons a shadow of a home. Respecting them as fathers, husbands, providers comes easily. But as stewards of the nation? It’s hard to meet their eyes. It’s hard to take them seriously as men.

After the Sacklers got rich selling addiction to America, they spent some of their plunder building museums emblazoned with their names. Boomers helping their sons with the down payment on a house after destroying their home (this country) feels eerily similar and manages to be MORE sinister in some ways.

But they just can’t hear it, it’s too painful for them, too shameful, and worst of all, it’s fully determined, they’re too old now to change it. And THAT is the real reason they cling to power as much as they do. And THAT is why they fear death so much. Because deep down they know exactly what will be written about them when they are gone. They know what word will not be said at their funeral.

The Baby Boomers are the Vacant Generation. They don’t believe in anything. And, really it’s quite sad. John Adams said:

“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

The baby boomers parents, the Silent Generation, persevered through unspeakably hard times. And their sons went on to become hollow “capitalists,” who believe in nothing. They broke the chain John Adams describes. And in so doing they broke our country.

We love you, in many cases you were legitimately great parents, mine certainly were. But we are older now, and the world has already rendered its final judgement upon you, you are not serious people. And it’s hard to have a genuine connection with people who demand we believe their delusions, you’re getting a bit old for that. It’s time to stop pretending you are or ever were wise, courageous, or virtuous. These are the traits accessible only to the man who actually believes in something. You are a bland mishmash of followers. Good little Eichmann. As such you are distinctly un-American.

Baby Boomers are not “reasonable moderates,” sensible men, or any of the other copes they tell themselves. You’re just empty vessels. You sat in the cuck chair and watched America get her back blown out like some freaky Gen X swinger. That is your legacy. Take a swig of the Blue Label, look at the Campbells Soup Cans, and enjoy the front of the plane while you can because I can assure you, there is no priority boarding where we’re all going.

The one true gift you have given us is that because of your meaningless lives, we are shaping up to be a generation who truly believes in something. The chaos you’ve wrought upon this earth has given us rich interior lives. And even if we fail to fix what you have broken, no one will credibly accuse us of being the vacant generation. That title belongs to you forever.

Love the boomers in your life, but know them for who they truly are. They don’t mind being called “selfish” because it serves to obscure the shame we all know they feel deep down, even if they expertly hide it from themselves.

misnomer, n. - A mistake in naming a person or place; an inaccurate description of this nature.

— Oxford English Dictionary

Dual-citizenship is a misnomer. It is a dangerous lie; it is completely incompatible with being a Whole American. Half-Citizenship (as it ought be called) is a treason of the highest order. Under our corrupt government as it stands today, it may not be a legal treason, but, make no mistake, it is a spiritual treason far worse than any legal violation. It is poisoning our people, our lands, and worst of all, it threatens to entirely destroy the place we Whole Americans call home.

If America and her countrymen are to continue to exist at all, we must, completely eradicate this perverse notion from our lands. America existed before her citizens, if she is to survive after the inevitable and imminent collapse of this despicable facsimile of a constitutional republic, we must start by putting an end to this daily outrage wherever it dares to rear its ugly head.

The Past

Henry VIII, Genghis Khan, and Louis XIV might not have agreed on much, but one thing they would have found perfect agreement on would have been that there cannot be more subjects than there are living souls. In a closed system with 100 subjects and two kings, the notion that both of these kings would have 75 subjects (therefore totaling 150 subjects) would point to the presence of a pernicious lie running rampant throughout both of their kingdoms.

Attention to military campaigns abroad and economic affairs at home would all be put on hold while the root of this dangerous lie was discovered, excised, and totally dismantled before the on-looking public. These kings would literally tear out this vile notion from the guts of these men and righteously spill it onto the cobblestone for all to see. As the horrified spectators washed up that night, none would dare to ponder this idea even in their private prayers to God.

The Present

And yet, over the past 80 years, we in America have allowed this dangerous notion to come into existence and infect the minds of far too many of the men now present in our country. We have allowed these Half-Citizens to sit on our schoolboards, our Presidents appoint them to high-level positions in our government, and no one blinks an eye when these people comfortably display their manifest treason on TV and at dinner parties without giving it a second thought. It’s time for that to change.

We should come to regard this vile practice for what it is. We must heap upon this despicable attitude our deepest contempt. It should be made into a disposition so dangerous to one’s standing as an American that all will willingly forfeit this idea forever and resign it to the dustbin of history.

It is time for every Whole American to stand up, put his chest out and insist on complete and total fealty to America from anyone who wishes to claim status as our countrymen. We have had enough, we forcefully insist that you burn your boats if you wish to work towards becoming Whole Americans like us. You can start with that second passport in your desk drawer.

Dangerous & Contagious

This legal-fiction of Half-Citizenship has led to the destruction of our country. It has led many men within our borders to claim a spiritual Half-Citizenship (hyphenated Americanism). We even see men who were born Whole Americans lose their way, choosing to deform themselves into Half-Citizens, as seen below.

All such variations of this treason, whether legal, spiritual, or whatever else are no longer acceptable. America is for Whole Americans, full stop. Some dictatorial governments demand loyalty tests. Patriotic societies like ours demand you choose to become whole within yourself and set yourself to the task of aligning your mind, body, and spirit with Americanism daily.

If you wish for your sons or their sons to have even the slightest chance of honestly calling themselves Whole Americans, you will burn your boats and embrace the American tradition with your whole being. Nothing less will be tolerated anymore.

There will never be a government tyranny powerful enough to convince us Whole Americans that ye halflings are our countrymen. You may hold the US passport, but you sir, are not an American if you give this idea even the slightest countenance. The State Department doesn’t decide who an American is, we do.

Not Even Half, Nothing

In formal mathematics, the concept of rounding teaches us that one half rounds up to one whole. I am afraid that in matters of American patriotism the exact opposite is true. Our pathetic government may allow your Half-Citizenship. But you aren’t American at all. When we call you Half-Citizens from this day forward, know that what we really mean by it is that you are not our countrymen at all.

Your treason is out in broad daylight for all to see. You’re not even a Half-Citizen of America, there is no such thing. You are nothing at all. You are a foreigner wearing the skin-suit of an American inside of our borders. We see you.

There has been a lot of talk about America First this past decade. I suggest that we first begin to remember what an American actually is.

I am a Whole American. So are my family members, friends, and business associates. What the fuck are you?

“Sexual Dimporhism is the differentiation of the sexes in respect of size, structure, or colour, which, though not directly concerned in reproduction, is yet indirectly concerned in it, through the advantages it gives to one sex over the other in the struggle for existence or in the competition for mates.”

— Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology (1898)

Think of it in terms of platonic ideals on a spectrum. The perfect female peacock on the left, the perfect male peacock on the right. As you get closer and closer to the gay origin (middle) you become less than ideal. In humans, we have dimorphic physical traits, but our mental dimorphic traits are probably of more consequence given our massive cognitive advantage over all of the other animals.

Diminishing Your Dimorphic Exaggeration

The further to the edges of the dimorphic spectrum you get, the more attractive you are to all of the creatures past the gay origin opposite you. You can think of it in a Homeric sense, Achilles is at the far right, Penelope the far left. The coward Paris is nearer to the gay origin. Helen was said to be physically near or at the far left, but psychologically quite gay (she left her husband for another man and occasionally tried to involve herself in public policy at Troy).

In life, there is no merit to nearing the gay origin, unless you wish to be an outright homosexual which we have no interest in discussing for the purposes of this article. Life is always improved by the relentless pursuit of the outer edges.

As a man, you will get more out of life by doing things that amplify your dimorphic exaggeration. Ambition, aggression, killer instinct, these traits will help you suck the nectar out of the fruit of life the more you near the masculine edge. As a woman, you will get more out of life by doing things that amplify your dimorphic exaggeration. Devotion, nurturing, family life, this is where you will truly discover yourself, at the outer bounds of your femininity.

Enter The Modern World

Our modern world is waging war on our hormones, even normies seem to be catching onto this idea these days. Our food and water supply is tainted by pesticides, excreted hormones, and xenoestrogens. We clean our houses and bodies with all manner of these xenoestrogens which we then breathe in or absorb through our skin. We get minimal sun exposure which can help to detox these effects. In fact, many an uninformed fool still wears sunscreen daily, instead of only in extreme cases like being out on a boat all day.

Most of these poisons fall into the category of endocrine disruptors, meaning that they disrupt our proper hormonal functioning.

“Endocrine disruptors are exogenous agents that interfere with the production, release, transport, metabolism, binding, action, or elimination of natural hormones in the body responsible for the maintenance of homeostasis and the regulation of developmental processes.”

— Curtis D. Klaassen, Casarett & Doull's Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons (1996)

In short, everyone is becoming gay. Modern men and women are experiencing the collapse of their sexual dimorphism and this is the mechanism through which we can explain everything about the world around us. Our environment is turning men into women and women into men.

It’s fairly well known that all these endocrine disruptors are making men soft, sapping them of their ambition, etc. But what is lesser known is that it’s having the exact opposite effect on women. You see, endocrine disruptors lower androgenic hormones (testosterone, DHT, etc.) and elevate stress / feminine hormones in men. Whereas in women these endocrine disruptors increase their androgenic hormones like testosterone and lower their essential feminine hormones like estrogen and progesterone.

Redpillers are oft to use the overused line, “women are becoming the men they want to fuck.” While this is true, it’s almost always the case that the midwit reciting this line believes that things like feminism are the root cause. They are wrong. I have no tolerance for feminism, it is obviously the single worst outcome to arise from marxist thinking and may well end up bringing about the total collapse of civilization.

But it’s not feminism that is driving the masculinization of women. That credit belongs to endocrine disruptors. Feminism has found fertile soil in the increasingly gay minds of us moderns. The idea is increasingly popular because we are all unhealthily gay, not the other way around.

First, The Men

Let’s start with men. In this section we will speak of the median man, I get it, you’re an outlier chad, good for you. Most men drink beer, smoke weed, play videogames, lack ambition, have gynecomastia, are deeply unattractive to women, and are shadows of the men their grandfathers were. Even when they wake up from their stupor and start lifting, many of them remain deeply neurotic and have a hard time even feigning the slightest bit of confidence.

“Men need to do better!”

— Every Woman, “Christian,” and Democrat on the Internet

This is all true. Cool. But let’s point that microscope at women.

Next, The Ladies

The women are just as gay as the men. But it is happening in a way that is making them better servants to our fake capitalist society. Whereas men are becoming less and less useful to the cogs of modern post-industrial society.

For the economists out there, we would observe a chart in which women’s contributions to the social security trust fund are going up while mens are going down. Alas the Federal Reserve Economic Data sets (a database maintained by the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) does not have such a chart broken down by gender, what a surprise.

It’s easy to hit men for failing to be efficient slaves to the system. However, it’s much harder to notice women’s success in our capitalist society as a an equal and opposite failing.

Increasing numbers of women are becoming “brides of the state.” If you’re a black woman in Atlanta this is more likely to take on the form of welfare etc. Whereas if you are a white hicklib striver from Kentucky trying to “boss babe” it in NYC at the expense of finding a man to breed with, you’re still a bride of the state, you’re just a net taxpayer which isn’t really the win that you think it is.

I’d say thanks, but none of us are ever seeing any of that money, so ask a boomer for some gratitude if thanks is what you seek.

Women’s testosterone going up is causing them to be more ambitious in masculine ways. They are inching to the right, away from womanly perfection towards the gay origin on our chart.

High T in women causes a lot of maladaptive behaviors and traits in women. Let’s go through some of them:

• It causes them to be more assertive and confrontational. This is how you end up with the Karen archetype, a woman willing to get in the face of a man and scream at him in public.

• The same pattern exists with the hen-pecking wife, this is just a woman who is tilted too far into her masculine and lashes out at her husband in private.

• It causes them to have different sexual preferences. Women have always enjoyed being dominated in bed, but the rise of interest in aggressive levels of choking, raceplay, and other much more bizarre sex practices amongst “hetero” populations are literally just transplanted behaviors from the Grindr scene. Literally gay desires infiltrating heteronormative bedrooms.

• It causes them to require men be further and further out on the male dimorphic spectrum — which is far from ideal since most men are being drawn closer to the gay origin. This is causing vast expanses of men to be left behind in the sexual marketplace. A good example of this is the height discourse. Women say things like “he must be 6’ tall,” to qualify. 100 years ago, “taller than me,” was the norm and is the only rational opinion (alas, there is no level of testosterone in a woman that imbues them with the reason of a man).

• It causes women to seek status in masculine ways. However, a woman’s status in this life is determined by her family life, not her public life.

• High T in a woman makes her infertile. The scourge of PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) is literally caused by excessive testosterone levels in a woman.

• It causes her to be a sexual risk-taker. This is no doubt contributing to the high body count problem. Women are less protective of their virtue and are willing to give it up more readily. They are becoming sexual thrill seekers like men.

• It causes women to desire entree into public life. Women are more likely to have strong political opinions than ever before and this is neither normal nor healthy for society or the woman herself. A woman’s political opinions are supposed to be imprinted on her by the strongest man in her life. Not so any more. Indeed high testosterone creates a rebelliousness in women that destabilizes society and makes the woman herself extremely unhappy (50%+ of democrat women report having mental illness).

• High T in a woman causes her to lose focus on her prime directive in life, which is to have children. It rejiggers her priorities, she starts believing that she is a man and must be judged along male metrics of success.

• And much more.

All of this is smashing into the modern ideas of feminism and has been turbocharged by misguided laws like affirmative action. Women who have become gay are now ambitious to do the things men are supposed to do. They tell themselves stories about the older generations of women being oppressed and marginalized, not realizing that insofar as their grandmothers still live, those women are usually 100x more elegant, beautiful, feminine, and therefore happier than they are.

Then you have mens problems only making the situation worse. Men are foregoing the university, which opens up more and more slots for women who make good little Eichmanns in the modern universities which now prize box-checking over creativity or genuine genius. Same with the workforce, etc.

Feminism Is The Symptom

In short, what many a middling internet poster sees as problems caused by feminism are actually nothing of the sort. Feminism isn’t causing this issue. It’s hormones, our societies sexual dimorphism is collapsing into the middle at the gay origin. We are all becoming they/thems as a result of all-pervasive endocrine disruptors in our environment.

Feminism has found a footing only because of this phenomenon. People are getting the causation backwards. Women are becoming increasingly gay, which in this situation, means more male-like. As such feminism provides a perfectly good rationale for why these women feel compelled to care more about their careers more than starting a family, etc.

Yes, there are also strong economic and cultural pressures causing this phenomenon, there is no doubt. But the hormonal story is, in this writers opinion, the biggest cause. We are all somewhat gay now, and unless and until we reckon with the harms our poisoned environment is doing to us, nothing will change, no matter how many basement dwelling boys and fame-seeking women opine on our modern ideologies.

Everything is and always will be… downstream of biology.

Rick Rubin’s principle of using constraints to create great art is a genuinely important idea and the reason I deeply respect the man. I think the ideas in The Creative Act: A Way of Being are essential if you wish to make great art.

Once you internalize this idea of constraint, you can take the second step and attempt to learn when, where, and how to impose constraints onto your own work. Natural constraints are incredible, but oftentimes the artist must add some of their own as well. This is how you bring forth order from the chaos of your artistic ambitions. This is how you make great art.

How?

Let’s say we are designing a screenplay of some sort, for a production of some sort. We think to ourselves, “I will follow Joseph Campbells Hero With A Thousand Faces for my screenplay.” Seems pretty good. Only one problem, ALL worthwhile storytelling necessarily complies with this structure (more on that in another post). You’ve identified a natural pre-existing constraint; not imposed a new one.

So you haven’t added a constraint, you’ve just acknowledged one that was already present before you ever opened your Macbook. Adding a constraint would be something more like, “I will force my screenplay into a homeric beat and structure at every level. I will force my story to mirror that of Achilles in The Iliad, even in the particulars in some metaphorical way when possible.”

Now, choice of such a constraint is ultimately an aesthetic practice of taste and judgement. And whether your work soars or not, that will ultimately be a matter of whether you choose your constraints correctly or not. And the creator of the art himself is best placed to choose his constraints. But I think many need to be reminded to seek out the strictures of constraint and thus allow their creativity to truly bloom.

This is what I meant to convey in the text. Perhaps I could have phrased it as a question. “What constraints have you chosen for your ambitious project? As relates to the story itself, perhaps you might consider {insert bad random idea in order to inspire a better one in the artist}.”

As for me, I have constrained myself to 500 words this morning. Do you prefer this version of me? Will the algorithm?

Thanks for reading.

In doing so, I have collected a fair bit of anecdotal relationship reports from women at this point. It’s shocking, but almost every single one of these women has dated a pathological narcissist (“Wow, so true!” as would say). When these women say narcissist, they always mean someone with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Taken at face value, this is quite troubling because it means that there are a ton of men out there with full-blown NPD. However, in listening to these women’s stories, I rarely come to the same conclusion as them.

Voyeurism In Service of Truth

When these women regale me with horrifying examples of narcissistic behaviors and actions, they are indeed quite bad. To a T, the longer I let them expound, every single woman eventually drops a story that, I believe, thoroughly dissolves their central thesis.

You see, the bad anecdotes are often quite gruesome. But capacity for narcissism alone does not, in and of itself, make Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Let’s wield the holy bible of therapy, the DSM, against the profession least occupied by intellectuals. (Insults like this are classic NPD; I detect numbers 1, 3, and 9 at least in the statement above.)

Standard Checklist Methodology

The Textbook definition of narcissistic personality disorder is as follows:

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. This pattern is indicated by the presence of at least five of nine specific criteria.

1. A grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerating achievements, expecting to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Belief that they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions.

4. Requires excessive admiration.

5. A sense of entitlement (e.g., unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations).

6. Interpersonally exploitative (e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve their own ends).

7. Lacks empathy: unwilling or unable to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

8. Often envious of others or believes others are envious of them.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Ooh, checklists and circular caveats—the favorite of the academic-but-not-intellectual. Let’s tease this out and put it into the language of the thinking person. (I’m exhibiting numbers 2 and 3 at least.)

Synthesized into a pithy sentence, by grok no less, we arrive at something like:

Pathological Narcissism is the soul’s enslavement to its own image, where the pursuit of self-glorification blinds one to the beauty of others and the truth of one’s own flaws.

Well, its use of metaphor is, ironically, soulless, and it’s not perfect; I am left with minimal fear that the robot will soon replace me as a hobbyist writer. But this topic, I feel, is somewhat beneath me, and I cannot be bothered to come up with my own synthesis. (“Dear god, he’s doing it again?! Does he even know?” Yes, I detect numbers 5 and 9, at a minimum.) So we’ll use the robot derivation—it’s good enough.

A Better Methodology

The checklist approach is an inclusive, threshold approach. Check five or more boxes, and you get NPD—very cool. It’s kinda crude but repeatable and teachable too. However, complexity is often the enemy of truth. When possible, simplicity is always a better route to truth. So, in this case, we can take our robot-derived simple definition, discard the checklist, and invert its methodology to use one of exclusion. Then, we add (gasp) an element of human judgment to it, and we have our new framework.

If we want to truly stunt on the normies, we can confine ourselves to examining one single counter-example and derive our diagnosis from a deep understanding of just one example. Let’s try—here we go:

If a person has exhibited moments in which they do not exhibit enslavement to their self and see the beauty and humanity in another, we must examine this and determine if it is genuine or not. If we use our human judgment and determine that the exhibited moment was genuine for the other person, not the self, then pathology might be able to be ruled out.

“Nuance” As Dangerous Justification

Here, the checklisters enlist what they think of as “nuance” to riposte and dispatch my foolish argument. En Garde, my dear!

They will say, “But my checklist and surrounding caveats note that the pathology may sometimes present as a person ‘breaking the pattern,’ but deep down, they are doing so in service of their own condition.” This is a neat trick because it allows the therapist to discard evidence to the contrary by ascribing malicious motivation to a surface-level action that, on its face, is a good thing. The therapist is exercising their human judgment.

So, an earnest apology, in and of itself, could easily be done for the purposes of the narcissist himself. While this is no doubt true sometimes, this flings the door open to human judgment in a way that, I’m not entirely sure, these people realize. In this way, their method, though it has more complexity and sophistication to it, still relies on human judgment—much more than mine, actually, because they must make a judgment about inclusions and exclusions. However, the checklist methodology itself serves to obfuscate this out of view from the therapist and convince them they are applying scientific rigor.

A hundred years ago, therapists were discerning intellectuals with a keenness for the aesthetic practice of judgment; they applied this to their subjects in hopes of helping them overcome themselves. Today, this does not describe the capacities of your average therapist—let’s leave it at that. Judgment is, fundamentally, an aesthetic application of taste, and it’s not really something that can be taught, in my experience.

This is why the DSM prefers the checklist approach—it’s a way of standardizing. But standardization inevitably flattens and reduces that which is art to a “science.”

When people use the word ‘science,’ it’s often a tell, like in poker, that you’re bluffing.

— Peter Thiel

The very name of the therapist’s handbook is a form of this. DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (of Mental Disorders). If you left off the last part and asked an intelligent alien to guess what field this may relate to, his first answer would not be psychology—I feel quite certain of this. So, while they don’t call it “psychological science,” these wily therapists have figured out more clever ways of achieving the same effect.

Observations From An Unlicensed Therapist

As a clandestine and unlicensed therapist to several women who go to strange men’s houses for sex (an admittedly skewed, though rapidly growing, and perhaps representative sample of women in America today), I have observed that these women’s NPD exes are quite probably nothing of the sort. When they inevitably tell me of a moment in which the man displayed empathy, remorse, etc., that’s when I pounce.

As any therapist with 200k in student debt will tell you, the key to maintaining the therapeutic frame is to remain silent for the most part, interjecting only at critical moments. I believe four semesters of writing “I shall be taken more seriously the less I opine” on the chalkboard, like Bart Simpson, is part of the curriculum—but I can’t be certain.

Nevertheless, this is when I strike. I inquire more and more about the situation in which the man displayed deep empathy, regret, or some such trait. I attempt to tease out of their reports whether this moment was in service of his assumed psychopathology or genuine.

And most of the time, it seems pretty clear that this was a genuine moment. And remember, I’m getting this from the woman’s perspective, so, on balance, it’s gonna be skewed against the man, not in his favor. But, as they say, the truth will out, and indeed it does for those with eyes to see it. It’s usually not even a close call, to be honest.

I hear about men writing long apologies in which they chastise themselves and convey a deep sense of remorse. I hear about other men who write brief interludes and then excuse themselves from her life, deeply embarrassed and possessing enough nobility to bow out gracefully. I hear about men who are racked with guilt for their childish and nasty behavior.

I almost never come to hear about men who are doing this in service of their own ego. I almost never encounter stories of men devoid of empathy. But I can see how the mistake can be made. Because I do hear about men who are a bit arrogant, envious, and have tried to showcase themselves as exceptional to the women they loved, only to act frantically and shamefully when it starts to come apart.

These read to me like… men. Who, though they are not perfectly formed, usually show enormous amounts of empathy, levelheadedness, and generosity of spirit.

Human Judgement

Now, in my exclusionary framework, this single example of empathy, etc., insofar as we feel high confidence that it is genuine and not in service of his ego, rules out pathology. But that scares people—it’s too easy, or that’s how it appears, at least. Our thirst for data is primary in our world today. There is no room for human judgment; this is unreliable, and, what’s more, it can’t be taught, which means it cannot be sold for non-dischargeable student debt by non-profit institutions.

Nevertheless, I feel that the exclusionary methodology is superior in the hands of a proficient practitioner (read: “special people.” Great example of Number 3—always remember, no one is allowed to be special today; this is the civic virtue of America after all, it is what the founders believed! Recall our famous creed, “All men are created equal… and remain equal forever.”).

But, in our data-obsessed world of checklisters, you may want to repeat this process on a few more examples. If you’re just too wed to R and p-values and just can’t bear to go full rawdog human, you can tease out more and more examples to build your sample size and increase your confidence interval. That’s fine, I guess. But, for me, I deeply prefer to make grand extrapolations from one single, well-turned-over example (Is this NPD? Seems pretty Numbers 1, 3, and 4 to me).

Structure At Every Level

I think we are pathologizing a lot of normal human behavior that just isn’t pathological at all. And I think this is a shame. Why is this happening? I have some theories.

Part of the reason this is happening is because of the structure of the therapy-industrial complex. Prepare yourself—observations about actual, immutable differences between men and women incoming.

First, the practice of therapy is utterly female-dominated now: 75% actual female, probably 95% when we include the spiritually female (gay, liberal, etc.). Second, its pool of patients is also majority female.

Women are trust-the-sciencers. This is just a fact; the exceptions only serve to prove the rule. Indeed, if anything of George Orwell’s is to survive at all in a thousand years, it will be this line, which, in less than a hundred years, has achieved nuclear, platonic levels of truth. Evidenced in East Germany, COVID, trans ideology, and the invincibility of the Democrat Party, even when it becomes an outright suicide cult.

It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.

— George Orwell, 1984

In this context, it cascades in a glorious but terrifying fashion. Aspiring female therapists go to get their credentialing; there, they uncritically consume the theory of therapy (which, though it was initially designed by men, has begun, over time, to be replaced by modern, affirmative-actioned female academics).

These newly turned-out therapist soldiers then go out, hang a shingle, and onboard hordes of young women as patients who cannot help but feel a horniness for their new friend’s master’s degree. Some of the therapists are sexy as fuck and charge enormous sums of money, transforming themselves into giga-Staceys of wisdom in the eyes of their patients.

Even worse, this whole process escapes containment and becomes a viral social phenomenon. Did you know that you can turn an entire elementary school of girls trans really easily? Well, you can; the affirmative-actioned psychologist academics have observed this, measured it, and turned it into scientific reports that you, the taxpayer, have funded. They’ve also then tried to suppress these findings, and, if you didn’t know this, they’ve been partially successful. We live in truly incredible times. But forget, for a moment, that being trans is alarmingly contagious in young girls.

You can also go on YouTube and watch videos by NPD influencers—yes, there are NPD influencers. No, these are not supposed to be people with NPD, although they usually are. On its face, these are just (usually female) therapists who make a living teaching people to see NPD everywhere in their lives. Yes, it’s true, you cannot help but notice that these people frequently appear to have actual psychopathologies of their own. And, yes, it’s also true that this content is extremely popular with women during breakups.

All of this results in the over-pathologizing of normal but shitty human behavior. But what’s worse is what it causes to be missed: that a lot of men are just unindividuated and need help with that process. But we tell their girlfriends, wives, and mothers that they have a personality disorder that is permanently fixed and cannot be rectified. I don’t think this serves the patients or the men. Although, I cannot help but notice that this does serve the therapy-industrial complex.

We live in a world where more and more young women are being encouraged to attend therapy. There, these impressionable young ladies will land on the couch of a box-checking half-academic. But, in the eyes of the patient, this therapist carries the same magical title as that of Freud and Jung. But they are nothing like those men, in the same way that your average criminal defense attorney is nothing like John Adams. The majority of therapists are just pleasant-looking human LLM interfaces to the DSM.

So, when they then find psychopathology where it’s much more likely they are dealing with an unindividuated young lady who is dating an unindividuated young man, the patient (the young lady) eats it up uncritically—the last stop in the chain of dangerous “respect for authority” I have just described.

Drafting off Old Perceptions

This is sad and appears to have very real negative consequences for our society. The production of therapists appears to correlate with decreasing levels of happiness in our society—make of that what you will. I’m sure they taught you that “correlation is not causation” in your undergrad, but did you consider that sometimes it is?

Now, there are people with psychopathologies out there. There are people with NPD, etc. I’m not saying that there aren’t. But I find it extremely unlikely that nine out of ten women are encountering men with this particular psycho-personality trait, even when we account for women’s world-historic body counts and their clustering around certain types of men in order to acquire these numbers.

What I think is more likely to be the cause of this perception is both therapist and patient believing that what they are doing in their fifty-minute sessions is anything remotely similar to the work of therapists of old. In reality, the problem is that the practice of either my methodology or the DSM’s methodology actually requires a certain level of taste, judgment, and discernment that, I’m not so sure, can be taught very easily, if at all. (How NPD of me!)

NPD vs. BPD

There is a reverse of this phenomenon, by the way. Men often use the slang, “She’s BPD,” by which they usually mean that the woman in question is batshit crazy and a great lay. It stands for Borderline Personality Disorder, by the way. But this is more meme than heartfelt belief for most men. Whereas many women are deadly serious in their convictions about NPD. This is caused by many factors, but one is that women come to this belief through their academically credentialed friends that they call therapists.

Whereas most healthy men use this slang to say something more general about women and are not caught up in true belief of BPD as such. Although you can find neurotic, spiritually female men on Reddit who are. The differences in these memes—the seriousness with which they are intended and meant—tell us a great deal about the differences between men and women.

Women Hurting Women

Yes, therapists aren’t supposed to diagnose non-patients and theoretically don’t. But we all know that this phenomenon of every woman’s ex having NPD didn’t start on YouTube or TikTok; it started on the couches and escaped containment to YouTube and TikTok.

If this piece enrages you and you would like to diagnose me, then you probably have a physical copy of the DSM—maybe even an old one—a comforting symbol of your prestige that reminds you of your expertise when you look at it.

I have problems, that’s for sure, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have NPD. If you have a copy of the DSM-5, you will be more likely to find my condition (if it’s a condition at all) in the section titled mood disorders. And I would suggest spending more time reflecting on the conditions in that section of your totem.

Because I think those kinds of conditions are much more relevant to our times today, even though the personality-disorder section is admittedly much more titillating. I get it, ladies, but let’s be professional. You are a professional, right?

There’s a lot of suffering going on out there, and, though most therapists are not actual doctors, I think they should still comport themselves in alignment with the Hippocratic oath. I worry that the therapy-industrial complex is doing quite a lot of harm.

And, in this particular context, it’s mainly women doing harm to other women, which makes it even more sad.

In many ways, arehtay was the driving force for all of Greek society. The pursuit of arehtay was prized above all else in Greek society, and for good reason. In the Iliad, we observe the manifest biological supremacy of Achilles as he and his friends seek glory, death, and strive to showcase arehtay in themselves. In so doing they hope to achieve kleos (undying glory). The story of Achilles shows us men how to harness our passion and ambition and use it to seek arehtay for ourselves. But for women, Achilles’ example offers no good example at all.

If you wish to implement a Bronze Age femininity into your lifestyle, you will want to read the Odyssey young lady. For it is in the Odyssey that we see the most famous example of feminine arehtay in all of human history. Homer leaves no stone unturned. Though the greatest storyteller of all time was a man, he still managed to put forth an example of arehtay for the ladies.

Penelope, Queen of Ithaca

The face that launched a thousand ships may have belonged to Helen, but the greatest woman to have ever lived was Penelope, Queen of Ithaca, wife to Odysseus. She followed the feminine path to arehtay, and millennia later, she still stands as the symbol of the greatest wife, the most wonderful mother, and the perfect woman.

No man has achieved more arehtay than Achilles. And no woman has surpassed the arehtay of Penelope. Both serve as examples to us, Achilles for us men, Penelope for you ladies. Her route to glory, her method for achieving everlasting arehtay, was accomplished, in one word, through devotion.

Penelope’s husband, Odysseus, goes missing for twenty years, and through cunning, discipline, and devotion, Penelope holds herself devoted to the man she has no guarantee of ever seeing again. After two decades, the two are, at long last, reunited, and in so doing, both secure everlasting arehtay, the very reason we still speak their names today.

You see, if kleos is what you seek, you must first determine whether your path to true and everlasting arehtay winds through the forests of devotion or along the pistes of ambition.

Queen Elizabeth II

As I racked my brain for a modern-day example of feminine arehtay, I felt like a fool when I finally realized that there is no recent figure more Penelope-like than that of Queen Elizabeth II. Her late Majesty, The Queen, achieved timeless arehtay and kleos because of how she conducted her life in accordance with what Homer teaches us through Penelope.

This woman got it, as they say. And what’s more, she never once forgot it. She seems to have intuitively understood the role from the very first day of her ascension. Her reign is defined by no other word more than devotion. This woman, ordained by God, spent every moment of her life devoted to her husband, her family, and her subjects, to whom she is mother. Amplified by the length of her tenure, Queen Elizabeth II achieved a feminine arehtay that we are certain never to again witness in our lifetimes.

Emily Wilson

I hesitate to tarnish the pages of this publication with the ugliness of the newest activist-translator of Homer, Emily Wilson, so this link will have to suffice. In her visage, I see the avatar of modern womanhood: the try-hard tattoos, the self-conscious affectation of joylessness in her expression. These self-harms are the evidence of the warped spirit of ambition flowing through a woman who has betrayed her nature. Worse still are her words:

I read Homer’s great poem as a complex and truthful articulation of gender dynamics that continue to haunt us.

— Emily Wilson, The New Yorker, 2017

Ahhh yes, these truths that reconcile themselves with nature. How do they manage to haunt us still in a world filled with true intellectuals like Emily? The full article is much, much worse. If you dare to take the journey into her mind, you must prepare yourself just as Odyssesus did.

Ambition & Devotion

The English word devotion, according to the OED, has had a private connotation since at least the 15th century. This is why we intuitively recoil at the all-too-common Protestant American tradition of public piety. A publicly proclaimed devotion to God carries a falseness about it. Whereas the word ambition has had public connotations since inception. Ambition is a public affair, devotion a private matter.

Homer teaches us that the twin peaks of arehtay available to man and woman must be traveled along different paths. The stories themselves reveal to us that there are two distinct trailheads. One trailhead is marked ambition, the other devotion. Look between your legs for the answer as to which route is best for you. No man or woman has ever achieved everlasting arehtay by trying to climb the wrong peak.

Achilles wasn’t devoted to being the best warrior. He wasn’t devoted to the spear. He certainly wasn’t devoted to Agamemnon, Greece, his kin, or anything but his own fulfillment of arehtay, in service of his ambition for kleos. He had a public ambition for glory, everlasting arehtay was essential to fulfillment of that ambition.

And when Achilles’ mother explains to him that he will die at Troy, it is his ambition for undying fame that compels him to lay siege upon Troy and claim his everlasting arehtay, knowing full well that he will die there.

For my mother Thetis the goddess of the silver feet tells me. I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either, if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans, my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting; but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers, the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.

— Homer, The Iliad (Lattimore)

Likewise, Penelope wasn’t ambitious to be recalled as the greatest woman in history. Instead, she was devoted. Devoted to her husband, his kingdom, and her family. And everything else flowed downward from her unparalleled private practice of devotion.

Penelope was the most devoted woman in Homer’s epics. And because of that, she stands today as the most perfect woman to have ever lived. Her feminine arehtay stands unmatched several millennia later.

My Own Mother

I’ve known my parents for 40 years now. And while they are quite near to perfect parents, they are still human, just like you and I. But upon reflection, I have realized something about my mother. I have never once in my life seen my mother’s devotion to her husband and family flag. Never once. I have never seen my mother put something above or before her devotion to her family.

My mother’s devotion to her family is how she has achieved her arehtay. It’s not that my mother is devoid of ambition. Not at all. Heck, she’s a lawyer, and there is no career less feminine than that of attorney. But she took 15 years off from that to raise her boys, just one single example among the millions that illustrate her perfect devotion to her family.

Her public ambitions never once came before or at the expense of her private practice of devotion to her family. And it is through this unshakeable devotion to one’s family that women achieve genuine arehtay. You don’t have to totally renounce a public life of ambition (although you can, if you wish), you just have to remember to never prize anything above your private practice of devotion to your family.

If Kleos Is What You Seek

For the young ladies out there, you would do well to find an ambitious man worthy of your devotion with whom you can start a family. Begin at once, pouring your devotion into him and the family that you build together, and watch as you both ascend the twin peaks of arehtay together, just on different paths.

Your devotion to your family will inspire ever more arehtay in your man. As you shower him in devotion, his ambition will grow, and he will rise to new heights. As his ambition grows and he comes ever closer to finding his arehtay, he will inspire further devotion within you, which will in turn unlock ever more of your own arehtay.

This is a very real-world example of a perpetual motion machine. But in order to build it, you must understand the complementary components of the system. And you must be prepared to embrace your role within the system. Neither component is inferior or superior to the other. There is always a perfect symmetry to all things true and eternal.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

Thanks for reading.

Yes, Aristotle already synthesized all of this much more magnificently than I ever could. I know because I input the finished contents of this essay into grok and he told me so.

Alas, there are no new ideas, just some good and beautiful ones.

Ok, so it’s been 23 days since I started this publication. I set a goal of 100 subs in 60 days. I am happy to report that we have crushed that goal. So before I get into anything else, I want to say Thank You! If you are receiving this in your inbox, you made this happen. Thank you. Here’s some more Craig Morey photography before we get into the sub mood.

Special shoutout to two established, and phenomenal writers ( & ) here on Substack who re-stacked The Hang Coefficient and got me a lot of traffic. You should check out their publications which I have listed and linked below:

Demonic Lust & Fate

The state of men & female nature in a sexless culture.

By Med Gold 🐒

Astral Flight Simulation

Fiction and Philosophy From Beyond

Recap

I launched the publication on April 14, 2025. I published my first real piece, Noticing Your Loins on April 19. Shortly thereafter I published Nietzsche Suffered From Extreme Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, a companion piece.

Thereafter, I published Boomer Hormonal Supremacy. But on April 26th, I published my first piece that actually attracted some attention:

Since then it’s been:

• Escaping The Groupchat Ghetto

• On Before And After Gym Transformations

• On Lilies: Her Fractal Essence

• On Opposite-Sex Friendships

• The Koch Curve of Cool

• And You Already Found Yourself

Heres The Growth Chart

You are in there somewhere. Thank you to everyone who liked, re-stacked, and subscribed these past 23 days.

How about we try some interaction? Apparently you can do polls in Substack. Cool.

POLL — How did you find me?

What I’ve Learned

• Thoughtful replies to peoples articles and/or notes go a long way. If you contribute something of substance, people will often check out your profile as a result.

• DMing a bit can’t hurt. Don’t go overboard, but if you know a few bigger accounts who might be into what you put out there, might help them see it.

• Make it a habit to scroll the feed for ten minutes after you hit publish, look for a note that might be somewhat tangential to what you just published and try to work a link into the bottom of your thoughtful reply. Don’t be obnoxious but don’t be too timid either.

• In my opinion, Taylor is the best audio narration voice. You can change it in the Dashboard settings.

• If you are on 𝕏, it probably can’t hurt to crosspost on there. If you setup a custom domain, the preview image won’t be blocked.

• Setup a draft in your drafts called TEMPLATE. Refine the footer subscribe copy to what you want it to be (To The Cypress Tree is a new publication…) and when you want to start a new draft, just duplicate this so it’s already in there, it seems like you can’t copy “buttons” like this.

• Re-stack work that you like from others. They will notice and appreciate it. Might come in handy someday.

That’s all from me today. Once again, thank you. Don’t forget to smash the like or re-stack button when you read something you like, it helps others to see. Lots more writing coming in the future very soon. I’m just relaxing a bit for a few days and trying to catch up on some non-substack work.

Thanks for reading and subscribing.

—Cheirophilus

In my feed today, I came across this note. The subject is about “finding yourself.”

The general theme of this note and many of the replies is one of, “You shouldn't expect to find yourself that early.” Well, I've thought about it, and I think I heavily disagree with this. I think that the person who puts themself on a journey of “finding themself” almost always already has. They just don't like what they've found very much, such that they undertake journeys of self-discovery as a way of denying this.

Comparisons Reveal Us to Ourself

We are born knowing only ourselves. As we grow up, we begin to observe the world around us, and this gives us the language to contrast and compare the world around us with ourselves, to begin to understand ourselves. We experience our context revealing itself to us with every year that passes. By the time we are teens, we already have a pretty good idea of who we are.

“Charlie is an amazing natural athlete, whereas I am not so much.”

“Betsy is much more beautiful than I am.”

“I am really funny; all of my friends on the bus are constantly laughing at my jokes.”

See the image below.

“I am Blue Man; I am taller than Pink Girl but shorter than Red and Teal Man.”

Built Through Comparison

Growing up and experiencing life bathes us in analogy, simile, and metaphor. We can't help but use comparison in order to understand ourselves. Other people are used by the growing child as the key to building an internal map of himself. “I have a penis like Daddy. Me boy. Not like Mommy. Mommy woman.” Although these days, this gets quite a bit more complicated in coastal bourgeois cities.

I propose that the “find yourself” crowd isn't confused about who they are at all. Instead, I think that they are unhappy with what they have already found out long ago. As such, they take to a shaman, go on an adventure, or sometimes knowingly take an incompatible lover in order to hide from what they already know.

They set out on quests in search of a new truth in lieu of reckoning with the truth they very much already know. It's sort of like asking Grok to estimate your IQ and then, being unhappy with the output, you ask it to try again and again until you get the answer you want to hear. (Yes, you can ask Grok to do that, and it's surprisingly accurate, assuming you've used it enough. Be careful; you might not like what he tells you.)

Hiding

These people tell themselves a story that they haven't come to fully understand themselves and that their true nature isn't already totally revealed to them. And the rapacious “find yourself” industry is waiting with wide-open arms, more than willing to say to them, “Let's figure out who you really are.”

This is a message that people who want to be something different than what they already are love to hear. Poor people love to hear about how to make money; likewise, people unhappy with who they already know themselves to be love to hear, “Maybe you just don't know who you are.”

You Already Know

But the truth is, unless you're seven years old and reading this (whoa, dude, cool), you very likely already know yourself extremely well. If you're 30, you found yourself a long time ago. The “find yourself” mission was undertaken from the moment you first made a friend, played a sport, or had a conversation. And, whether you like it or not, you already know yourself.

This is not a situation of “There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer.” Sorry, dude. You already have everything that you need to make an adequate analysis. Think about it: you have a pretty good idea of who your friends and family members are. Why should you believe that you somehow don't know yourself even better? After all, you have access to much more of yourself than you do of others.

Your goal isn't to find yourself; it's to accept yourself. Oftentimes, this sucks since, depending on the situation, it can be pretty painful. After all, we frequently want that which we do not possess. It sucks even more when we are talking about wanting to be what we are not. How about an example?

Academia Contains Few Intellectuals

You see this in the humanities quite frequently. Most academics are, to my eye, not intellectuals at all, at least not these days. But somewhere along the way, they got a wire crossed. Maybe they were a good test-taker and received praise from teachers and parents for this. Or maybe they worshipped a grandfather who was an academic and a bona fide intellectual. For whatever reason, this becomes their goal; they want to be an intellectual; they deeply yearn to be seen as one.

But, for whatever reason, they're just not. Maybe they're not deep thinkers, or maybe they don't really have the ability to think creatively. Perhaps they're too ideological, too literal, or not good at being curious, whatever. But they have the raw intelligence and the ability to complete the tasks required to enter academia. And they have the drive to become what they want to become.

These are all good things on their own, I suppose. I'm not going to challenge the notion that hard work, ambition, etc., are good things (not in this article, at least). But most academics, particularly in the humanities, just don't hold the intellectual’s pose very naturally, if at all. And so, they are pouring energy into an unbecoming of sorts. They are rejecting their nature. And this, my friends, eventually makes for an unhappy and unfulfilling life.

And when you get academies full of non-intellectuals, they start to do really weird things, like stuff Marxism and intersectionality down the throats of young people who thought they were just there to study poetry or learn to write essays.

This is why the (correct) public consensus is that the professors are mentally ill communists full of shit. Because, in many cases, they are. The academy is full of people who make themselves read esoteric Iliad translations when, deep down, they just want to sip tea, read airport books (Gladwell, etc.), and be seen as the kind of person who smokes a pipe.

If you could take your average humanities professor and put them in a Macy's window, LARPing as an intellectual for eight hours a day, most of them would be much happier than they are now, doing whatever it is many of them do all day. Even better, they wouldn't be polluting the lake of civilization's collective knowledge, pulling us further and further away from the truth.

The Hive

You get striver-hives like Harvard that are full of people who earned the credential but possess no natural inclination for genuine intellectual pursuit. And then, they get irritated when they encounter the genuine article (worse if he has no credential), experience deep feelings of resentment and inadequacy, and lash out at the world in weird ways, as mentioned earlier.

They want to be seen reading the Iliad, but deep in their heart, it's just not really who they are. There are too many online examples showing exactly this type of person to count. It only takes one or two readings of a person's thoughts to see if they are LARPing or not. Consider this made-up example:

Karen B. Carrington (Professor of English Lit at Harvard since 1997)

“I think that the 51% of my countrymen who voted against my preferred candidate are evil, dumb, and should maybe even be sent to re-education camps.”

Wow, I can't wait for my daughter to learn about the nuances of Chaucer from this person!

Back to finding yourself, the actual subject of this essay. These people are driven by their desire for prestige and the chance of becoming what they want to be. They are not driven by intellectual exploration for its own sake. They are academics by title, but they are not intellectuals by birth.

You see it everywhere now. And it's a big part of why the universities are ideologically captured and fundamentally broken. They are filled to the brim with people wearing the skin-suit of the professor, but possessing none of his characteristics except for a very good understanding of MLA citation standards.

Striving vs. Striver

Unless you've suffered an unusual brain injury, it is highly unlikely that you need to “find yourself” after your teenage years. It sounds trite, and I hate to even use the phrase, but really, you just need to accept yourself. If you're having an “identity crisis,” I bet it's just that you found yourself a long time ago, didn't like what you found, and still haven't come to terms with it. Worse, you might be spending your entire life LARPing, as in the case of many humanities professors today.

In life, striving for things can often be a good thing. But striving to be someone you are not is not a good thing. This is why the verb (to strive) has positive connotations, while the noun (striver) generally has negative connotations.

If you find that you have become exactly what you wanted most to become, it may be wise to check in with yourself and make certain that you are, indeed, still yourself at all.

You may find that who you desire to be and who you actually are are often very different things. Being what others expect of us is a mistake. Attempting to be what we expect of ourselves is often torture, especially when it comes at the cost of who we really are.

Thanks for reading.

The Koch curve is a fractal shape that starts as a straight line and becomes increasingly jagged by repeatedly adding smaller triangles to its edges. It looks like a snowflake and gets more complex with each step, never quite reaching a finite length.

I posit that oldhead libertarian Nick Gillespie (editor-at-large Reason Magazine) roughly defines the median between gay and cool. We will call this the Gillespie Median. As for the two sides, don’t think of them as having anchors per se. Neither of my selections perfectly personifies the outer reaches of each respective side—although a good case could be made for Delon. They’re only meant to be generally emblematic of each side of the Gillespie Median.

For the gay side, we use Emily Bazelon, I don’t know if she’s even been heard from in a decade, but she pretty well personifies the gay side from what I remember. On the cool side we’ll use Alain Delon, cause duh. So you end up with anything left of the Gillespie Median being within the Bazelon Region (Gay). And anything to the right side of the Gillespie Median can be said to be contained within the Domain of Delon (Cool).

Ugly things Aren’t Always Gay But True Beauty Is always Cool

Before we begin, you need to understand that anything can be evaluated simplistically on the Koch Curve of Cool. But, you can also descend deeper into both the Bazelon Region and the Domain of Delon. Such that, we might say that, for instance, Clarence Thomas is cool, but if we want to be more descriptive, we might say that Justice Thomas is 14 Delons Deep (14D for short), a product of his longstanding status as cool.

Conversely, the same can be done on the gay side. Let’s take the Ewok from Return Of The Jedi, his name is Wicket by the way. He is extremely gay and has been so for many many decades, he’s also the avatar of the global south, so we might say that he is 37 Bazelons deep (37B for short). But it’s not just a product of time, that’s just one way to use Bazelon / Delon depth. You can use it for anything really. But the idea is, more Bazelon depth is bad. More Delon depth is obviously good. But things can be extremely gay or cool without necessarily having a ton of, or any depth at all.

Look, you’re not going to agree with many of my calls. And that’s fine. The fractal nature of our universe is infinite, and ultimately, placing things on the Koch Curve Of Cool is a subjective and aesthetic practice. I will leave the comments open.

Okay, let’s begin:

• Racism is kinda cool. Depending on how and why you are racist determines its Delon depth. When adopted also plays a role here.

• Lived sexism is somewhat cool and can have Delon depth in certain circumstances.

• However, talking about being sexist online is very gay but with no real Bazelon depth.

• Whereas, making a career of misogyny brings one nearer to the Gillespie Median but adds enormous Bazelon depth.

• Democrat party is obviously extremely gay.

• All flavors of communism are generally pretty gay.

• Republican Party is right over the Gillespie Median, definitely not cool, but also not gay.

• Barack Obama is both actually gay and in Koch Curve Theory, also, extremely gay. Bro doesn’t even lift.

• However, “bro do you even lift” is quite gay now.

• Harvard and all of the Ivies are super gay and reach far down into the depths of Bazelon.

• Being rejected from Harvard despite being an Aryan god with a 4.0 and 1600 SAT is pretty cool. And depending on how you play it, your capacity for Delon depth could be a sight to behold.

• Joe Rogan is pretty near the Gillespie Median and vacillates back and forth on both sides.

• However, rare clips of Joe Rogan reading fleshlight ad copy are extremely cool.

• Cutting your dick off to become a woman is extremely gay with a lot of Bazelon depth.

• Whereas, cutting your tits off to become a dude is only somewhat gay with no real Bazelon depth.

• Being a pornography induced Autogynephile who at least owns it is somewhat cool (though we should still severely shun these people to discourage it)

• Regretting cutting your dick off and talking about your regrets on podcasts is square over the Gillespie Median nowadays. Was somewhat cool for a bit, but is shifting left.

• The word based has passed the Gillespie Median into quite gay and will be totally gay by years end.

• Senator Based Mike Lee is obviously, extremely gay.

• Despite most of its writers being on or near the Gillespie Median. Reason magazines staffers combine together to causes an output of extremely gay. Maybe this is an example of quantum physics, I’m not sure.

• The New Yorker is obviously extremely gay. At this point sitting at roughly 28 Bazelons. But is capable of descending much much further as it loses its prestige in its death throes.

• Having a New York Times subscription is quite gay. The length of tenure of your subscription determines how many Bazelons deep you are.

• King Trump forever in your heart is extremely cool. Perhaps still the coolest thing you can believe. Obviously much Delon depth as well.

• However, King Trump posting on the timeline all of the timeline. Somewhat gay.

• Reasonable person IQ posting like that of the I/O guy on X is extremely gay with minimal Bazelon depth.

• Getting wound up about Austen Metcalf murder and posting about it for weeks on end is near to the Gillespie Median.

• Believing in your heart that we just can’t live around them but rarely sharing that online is pretty cool and in some ways many Delons deep depending on the particulars of your situation.

• SSRIs and most modern psychiatric medications are extremely gay and many Bazelons deep.

• Whereas MAOIs are extremely cool and like 10 Delons deep. Only if you actually feel you need them of course.

• Hot mothers with no public profile are extremely cool and are 17D+.

• Women in public life are almost always gay.

• However Camille Paglia is extremely cool, though not very many Delons deep.

• Hating on Revenge of the Sith is near to the Gillespie Median but many Bazelons deep.

• The first season of the show Andor is surprisingly cool.

• Zoomer men are often quite cool. And some will achieve enormous Delon depth as they age. Others will not.

• Underwear is quite near the Gillespie Median but on the gay side.

• Owning zero pairs of underwear is extremely cool and many Delons deep.

• Being gay(TM) is extremely gay.

• Buttigieg, Thiel, and Bessent style gay is extremely creepy and quite gay. As for it’s Bazelon depth, I’m not sure tbh.

• That said, Scott Bessents pink house is quite cool and a few Delons deep.

• Grindr bathroom-style gay is just past the Gillespie Median in gay but could maybe become slightly cool if they become extremely bigoted against trans.

• Tesla vandalism is only somewhat gay but 957 Bazelons deep.

Note, being near to the Gillespie Median but having tons of Bazelon depth is a brutal reflection on you as a person. In many ways it’s much worse than being extremely gay but with no Bazelon depth. Because it means you’re a normie with a normie life, but deeply passionate for meaningless gay causes.

• Christianity is always hovering over the Gillespie Median.

• However during the Crusades and Age of Exploration it was extremely cool.

• That lesbian pastor who chided Trump is super gay and at least 10 Bazelons deep.

• If you attend a church like that, you are even worse.

• Islam is an extreme case of somewhat gay but 1 Million Bazelons deep. Maybe the ultimate NPC belief.

• Amish is quite cool and a has a few Delons of depth to it, maybe even more, not sure.

• Mormonism is quite gay.

• Harvey Weinstein is extremely cool but has no Delon depth.

• Tucker Carlson himself these days is actually somewhat gay.

• However, Tuckers show is still somewhat cool

• John Wayne Gacey is beyond cool and has enormous Delon depth.

• Writing on Substack is usually extremely gay and in the worst of cases it has a lot of Bazelon depth.

• Being prolific and literary in the Amazon product reviews is extremely cool

• Wondering why I couldn’t just use cringe instead of gay to get along, that’s very gay and has some amount of Bazelon depth to it.

• White chicks saying the N word on camera in public is quite cool for now, but as with anything chick, it’ll cross the Gillespie Median into gay almost instantly.

• Body shape-ism wherein only women with hourglass figures are considered real women is maybe going to be cutting edge cool soon.

• Using Ewok to refer to brown people is sorta cool but lacks Delon depth.

• “I don’t watch tv” is extremely gay.

• Whereas, actually watching tv is near to the Gillespie Median but has a ton of Bazelon depth.

• Thinking that one word titled shows like Succession, Severance and others are “brilliant” is gay beyond belief and has Bazelon depth of at last 23 if not more.

• Rap music is actually gay apparently and of course also… very gay.

• Country music is perfectly centered over the Gillespie Median.

• “Music makes you dumb and is always noise polluting your mind,” is kinda cool but will be soon be brought nearer to the Gillespie Median and given enormous Bazelon death by NPC strivers in 3…2…1.

• Weed is gay.

• Not drinking is near to the Gillespie Median but has a Bazelon depth of 7. It can get so much worse though.

• Eating your wife’s pussy really well but not too frequently is cool and often has significant Delon depth.

• Eating your Tinder dates pussy is near to the Gillespie Median and has a lot of Bazelon depth.

• Blue eyes are only somewhat cool now but can never actually pass thru the Gillespie Median, so don’t worry.

• Green and (predominantly green) Hazel eyes are now very cool and are maybe at around a 3 in terms of Delon depth.

• Distinguishing between black and hazelnut eyes (ridding yourself of the false category of brown eyes) for purposes of better racism is pretty cool and maybe will be able to achieve some Delon depth.

• Huge dicks are near the Gillespie Median but somewhat gay.

• Whereas, beautiful penises are now quite cool and could get some added Delon depth.

• Perky tits are somewhat gay.

• Tits with optimal hang coefficient are extremely cool and have enormous Delon depth.

• Jeans are always cool and are the obverse of Islam in some ways. Delon depth in the millions.

• Linen clothes are always cool (see Bible).

• Elegant teak sex toys off Etsy are pretty cool and are maybe 1.5D.

• Complex sex toys in garish colors are gay but near the Gillespie Median and are about 7 Bazelons deep as it stands today.

• Carnivore is extremely gay.

• Peating is kinda cool but is rapidly nearing the Gillespie Median and will soon be gay. Whether it achieves significant Bazelon depth when it becomes gay is unclear to me.

• Psychopathic Incorrect Peating where you live on only Milk, Mexican Coke, and fresh-squeezed Orange Juice is extremely cool and 26 Delons deep. If you could buy deep OTM options on this, even at these levels, it would probably be a good buy.

• Plant-based is near near the Gillespie Median but has 76 Bazelon Depths to it. There is no floor.

• Refusing to speak with your female middle school teacher is extremely cool and always will be.

• However, Andrew Tate himself is quite gay.

• Hookah holds the record for longest time spent at the outer reaches of extremely gay. As such its Bazelon depth is unknowable and approaching infinity.

• Cigarettes are always pretty cool. Depending on who you are and how hot you are, smoking can have significant Delon depth.

• Sleeping with your teenage students (if you are hot) is extremely cool.

• Sleeping with your student if you’re ugly or fat is near the Gillespie Median and has a lot of Bazelon depth to it.

• Trump himself is extremely cool and has a ton of Delon depth.

• Elon is extremely gay but doesn’t have any real Bazelon depth which is his saving grace I suppose.

• Normie MAGA is near the Gillespie Median and barely cool. Nevertheless, it manages to have a lot of Delon depth.

• Podcasts are extremely gay now.

• Being tan is always extremely cool and is a 49 Delon depth at least in most cases.

• Skincare and sunscreen is near the Gillespie Median and has a lot of Bazelon depth.

• Sunglasses used for aesthetic purposes are extremely cool.

• But, Raw dogging the sun most of the time to hit your melanopsin receptors is pretty cool too.

• Vitamin D supplements are near to the Gillespie Median with a Bazelon depth of 5.

• Whereas getting Vitamin D from the sun is quite cool with significant Delon depth.

  

• Pelvic Floor dysfunction is extremely gay.

• Perfectly healthy loins is extremely cool.

• Making everyone think about your 27 year old pussy being pounded out by a 60 year old boomer from the Whitehouse podium is extremely cool… for now until it wears off.

• AOC is gayer than Wicket and fast-becoming fat. Her eyes are black, not brown.

• Mixed race used to be gayer than just plain old black.

• But the blacks have really been working hard and have made being black one of the gayer things you can be in 2025. Unsure how to characterize their Bazelon depth tbh.

• Nancy mace is extremely gay. Ironically she is also very trans in multiple ways.

• Amy Coney Barrett is near to the Gillespie Median but her Bazelon depth is unfathomably deep.

• Conservatards who advocate for putting women on SCOTUS are gayer than Freddie Mercurys rectum.

• Female lawyers are near the Gillespie Median but usually at around 13 in terms of Bazelon depth.

• Struggling to achieve orgasm is always extremely gay.

• Being highly pneumatic as a woman is always cool. This doesn’t mean the woman herself is cool though. As a rule women are gay and usually have high Bazelon depth.

• Megyn Kelly is extremely gay.

• Whereas Dana Perino is quite cool all things considered.

That’s Enough For Today

Go off in the comments. But know that I will liberally block or return fire on any libtards who try to insert falseness. As for normgroids who just have no taste and might get it wrong, I’ll try to be nice.

As for the rest of you, I’d love to hear from you about things you see out in the world and how you would evaluate them using the Koch Curve of Cool. As mentioned up top, these are just some first-line thoughts, I’m sure I got some wrong so feel free to let me know, I can handle it.

Thanks for reading.

Almost all of these women are aesthetically minded, high IQ, and all of them get extremely wet when they encounter a good metaphor.

One Such Friend

One such friend most embodies this kind of relationship. We never fucked. I met her through my girlfriend at the time; her boyfriend was becoming a close friend of mine then. The girls were literally longtime childhood friends. Even if we had both been single, I feel like I probably would’ve been friendzoned by her.

We text a few times a year, and this accounts for the substantive parts of our extremely intermittent conversations. We sometimes send each other writing that we enjoy, briefly rant to one another on the state of modernity, or just share shit we are into.

If memory serves, I think I once made out with my girlfriend while she was tangled up with us on a couch—and I might’ve tried to tell my young self I’d kinda had a threesome for a month before the delusion wore off. Then I eventually came to have a genuine, sapphically-tilted threesome and can now laugh about my attempt to fraudulently amplify this moment in my ambitious youthful mind.

Here’s some tasteful sapphic-themed art to take the edge off. It bears relation only to the completely random anecdote that I just told you which has absolutely nothing to do with the thrust of this piece. Let’s see if this triggers substacks prude filter (always be learning):

One time, a nosy, paranoid ex of mine accused me of having erotic feelings for this woman, and I guess she wasn’t wrong. But it’s a twice-a-year text relationship—barely anything even then. Sure, airplanes exist, but my words don’t carry such potency, and I don’t think she knows how much hotter I’ve gotten (I don’t use social media).

And Yet

Were we local to one another right now, and freed of our respective obligations to others, I like to think that we would fuck—and that it would be an exceptionally beautiful display. Two erotic and aesthetic minds finally unleashing on one another after two decades; both of us a bit surprised at the frisson of finally connecting, albeit in totally different ways. Her, confused into high arousal by her attraction to the awkward boy she once knew who is now fully a man; I, overcome by the mild but long-lasting feelings of erotic frustration finally clearing like an unclogged pipe.

Alas, I think she might be starting a family at the last minute—good for her. I hardly know her anymore, but from what I remember of her, I think she would make a world-class mother, and it would be a shame for her not to do so. I find these friendships to be best served by talking about the world and not our worlds; I really don’t know hardly anything about her life, nor she about mine, and I think that’s mostly for the best.

I think this rough framework actually sets the right architecture for genuine opposite-sex friendships—one that is based primarily on shared interests (aesthetics and heterodox thinking in our case) and a sort of “didn’t happen before but probably could today,” type vibe. There’s a kind of crossing of these two people in the middle of life that happens, as age and experience do what they do differently to men and women.

This is a kind of extreme low-potency, long-distance, longterm arousal for what might’ve been—she for you as you are now (so very different and nothing like she remembers); you for her exactly as you remember her then.

On the two or three times a year we have a text conversation, it usually lasts a day or two. I must shamefully confess that, long ago, after one such conversation, I took to the algorithms of sex and sought out a woman in her likeness. (Does it make it less or more terrifying and horrible if I admit to having done this on one other occasion regarding another of my female friends?)

But when her facsimile and I spoke to one another, it was, of course, nothing like what I know the conversation would be like with my actual friend, and so it was a disappointment all around—because the truth is, her mind, though I barely know it at all anymore, is what I thin makes me most horny for her. As for whether or not I closed my eyes during sex and used my imagination, even I have limits. Use yours.

On Female Aesthetes

There is something about the female aesthete that stirs in me the urge to eat pussy with reckless abandon—something that often feels emotionally unsafe in today’s modern world, at least with low quality casual sex partners. Even in a longterm relationship it can become problematic without guardrails. It is as though a woman who understands beauty is more capable of truly appreciating the gift.

I want to believe that the female aesthete is less wont to let it make her think less of your masculinity and is instead capable of transmogrifying your being between her legs into the most masculine act.

There’s a kind of security felt with female aesthetes that allows one to feel a bit safer in desiring to give more than to receive without it destroying the polarity. I am drawn to women like this. There’s something freeing in being able to relax one’s frame a bit, act a bit more androgynously mentally, and assume the improper role as an appetizer—only to rise moments later and be able to serve her the full masculine entrée with no hint of contradiction present in her eyes.

Further Detours On Hands And Dick

It’s been years since I’ve seen this chick in person. Look at me trying to deflect the cringe—excuse me, this friend, I mean. It’s been years since I’ve seen this friend in person, but I believe she had exceptionally beautiful hands; that’s usually a prerequisite for me in any given female association, so that would make sense.

Beautiful hands are one of the surest signs of beautiful nipples, breasts, pussy, etc., so that would be a nice bonus in this, gulp, fantasy.

NOTE: I am slowly building the blocks of this Cheirophilitic theory of everything as it relates to female beauty. See On Breasts and On Lilies for two critical building blocks recently published.

Beautiful mind and hands are the clearest signs of beautiful everything else in a woman—use this information wisely and kindly, please. Anyway, enough about my fantasies of eating my friend’s pussy; she might be reading this in the office, in a cubicle with no real means of outlet for many hours. Not many women receive Houellebecqian LARP prose (that’s a dangerous self-suck if ever there was one) in their inbox during the workday. Even fewer receive it knowing seventy-five others might also be reading it.

NOTE: Like and Restack this post on Substack to increase the potential potency of this pieces’ arousal and/or creepy factor.

When we text, I sometimes wonder if she fantasizes about fucking me—or if I’m frozen in time in her mind’s eye as the twenty-two-year-old awkward-looking beta that I was back then: a funny, clever man, but not one you’d wanna fuck. I like to think that she has observed enough men around her and seen some of them blossom into men—either through concerted effort or the gift of natural aging—and I wonder whether or not she has ever imagined me naked, maybe even hard, even if it’s only in those brief moments when my name randomly appears on her iPhone twice a year.

It’s not a cannon by any means, but it’s been referred to as “the most beautiful penis I’ve ever seen,” by at least half a dozen women by now (without prompting), something I suspect most men cannot relate to. So I like to think that as a true aesthete she would appreciate it even more than most.

Cowardly Caveat: This post will seem like an alarming combination of horny-posting and simping or whatever they call it, and who knows, maybe it is. But really, I think it’s just that I’m using these horny memories to inspire and inform the subject of this article. Let’s continue with the cringe, go much deeper.

The Old Persons Village

I sometimes like to think that if tragedy befell us both, God would somehow use his control of fate to bestow upon us both a special surprise near the end of life—that he would put us in the same retirement community, unbeknownst to one another at first, each totally alone, somewhat sad, and afraid about having managed to find such lonely ends. But then, glimpsing sight of one another on the walking paths after decades of having forgotten one another, we would quickly fall in love and have beautiful old-person sex twice a day until we expired gracefully—me first, her two months later. I think of it as akin to that movie in which Chris Pratt wakes Jennifer Lawrence out of cryosleep, minus the, “wtf you woke me up! I’ll never forgive you.”

We would spend hours reading in the same room together, share gems we find on the internet, and she would teach me about art and photography, the nuances of gardening; I would thrill her with my exceptional conversational skills, my deep knowledge of history, and give instruction on the finer aspects of the female form to and about her.

These moments would be punctuated by prolonged and frequent readings aloud (by me to her) as she lay snuggled in my arms. She would never once ask me to wrap it up, instead allowing me to get my fill reciting another man’s words every single time—not out of a desire to please me, but from her own insatiable thirst for knowledge and beauty.

I like to think we would exist in a small, cozy place, made beautiful by her exquisite sense of taste; our place would be the envy of the unaesthetic old crones all about the small retirement village, who would shun her out of resentment for her refined taste and lack of children, which would only serve to drive her and I ever closer together.

Though it is evocative of feelings of loneliness to ponder the end without children or a true spouse, I think that, in many ways, we would be the least lonely couple in that community—a product of squeezing many lost decades into the last one.

Self-Consciousness

Given that this post was inspired by one of our twice-annual text conversations that culminated in—okay, fine, our text reconnect was actually initiated by me self-doxxing this new Substack publication to her yesterday, and yes, she’s a subscriber now, so this post is either gonna implode in embarrassment or somehow find a way to soar, there is no in between.

Despite the horniness laced throughout, this is really just motivated by a perfectly rational longing to be read by her or anyone really. Now that I’ve gotten a taste for for what it feels like to be read these past two weeks I can’t stop. But I do wonder if this post will now destroy that friendship forever—or if maybe she’ll kinda get it, or who knows, maybe even really get it.

NOTE: Once again, please smash that like and restack button to tell her how she should feel!

I know that she understands the written word extremely well—certainly enough to, at a minimum, enjoy this for what it is. But that may be separate and apart from the evoked feelings of ick and creepy it elicits. I understand that the appreciation for the thing is separate from the feelings aroused by the thing.

On balance, I feel that the very intermittent nature of our friendship and the possibility of its destruction is just not worth enough for me to keep these brilliant thoughts away from my subscribers and, maybe, the broader world.

No that’s not true. I do value the friendship, I hope a why not both can exist in the aftermath of this dangerous exercise.

After all, what I actually want—much more than a brief encounter with this beautiful woman from my past—is for her and many others to read me; because really, that is the actual connection between us, insofar as it exists at all. We read and understand each others intermittent thoughts. And I think that’s part of what helps unlock the key to some opposite-sex friendships. These friendships allow us to be seen in a way that neither same-sex friend nor lover can really provide—the thoughts we occasionally share with the opposite-sexed friends are often qualitatively different and require special outlets.

Daring To Horny-Post

I think this topic will resonate with others, even if it terrifies or disgusts her. The contents of our life are grist for the mill, as they say; that’s just the fact of writing. I don’t know how people write about goblins and orcs—my skill level is too low, I guess.

Today, I say damn the consequences and I bravely dare to horny-post with reckless abandon in hopes that all of you readers will extract something deeper from this or at least get some voyeuristic enjoyment out of my self-immolation.

AGAIN: A shameless call to action. Please leave comments like “I am a gigachad who has never experienced unfulfilled desires whatsoever, and yet this essay still manages to resonate with me.” Beautiful women, a simple “really get it,” will be more than adequate. Thank you.

I am trying to resist the urge to defend myself at all; I don’t think there’s any need for self-consciousness on here. But writing on the internet often forces us to be too mindful of the ackhsually / you’re a loser crowd.

Just yesterday, I was tidying up an article in which I believe I have accidentally proven pussy mathematically and found myself worrying about whether I should re-word the phrasing, “her clitoris is now visible to us,” and thought, for longer than I should like to admit, about whether I needed to rephrase it lest I get skewered in the comments by the unensouled and the inexperienced.

We must fight this urge at all turns. If this horny-post finds its way to all of you in your inboxes, it means that I have successfully fought away this urge for self-censorship.

Back On Message

Overall, I feel that opposite-sexed friendships can sometimes be genuine, though, of course, they always have some sense of frustrated erotic desire coursing through them somewhere. But it really only works if life circumstances make it so that the contours of the erotic components serve only as faint background, and the shape of its arc must be quite specific.

Meeting when both of you are dating other people is good soil for this type of friendship in my opinion. Even better if one of you then moves away. Some casual friendships with women can exceed even those of some of our deep male friendships in a variety of ways—although I do grant that this is probably not very true for many normie men who lack more feminine interests or refined tastes.

These kinds of friendships often come to us through a healthy lack of erotic possibility in the beginning, which then converges on a maybe in middle age, and are augmented by distance, and the transformation of the two people, which cannot be seen through the blue bubbles.

In moments of deeper consideration than is perhaps advisable, it coalesces into a vague but almost certain sense of absolutely when we ponder the possibility of ever needing a consolation-prize-type arrangement in our golden years. Should families and spouses not emerge and the boundaries between the two of you somehow collapse.

In some ways, I think writing publicly might be a good way to keep in touch with these types of friends—even better if they themselves also write. Although posts exactly like this are a high wire act that I’m not sure I’d recommend.

Writing publicly can act as a sort of asynchronous, indirect communication that can allow one to check-in on the other voyeuristically without the other necessarily knowing. And then maybe it can occasionally prompt a “you were so right about that,” text or something of the sort.

Other times though, as may end up bering the case this time, it could lead to a “Dude, I would never. Get over yourself, we are just friends, and now you’ve ruined that you fucking creep.” Only time will tell.

Thanks for reading today’s overdose of cringe. I promise it won’t be too frequent. Clearly, I found the courage to hit send.

The real question though… did I leave the facsimile anecdote in?

A Note On Timing:

This article was conceived of and written the morning of May 2, not a moment before that. This may be extremely relevant to one of you. I was on the cusp of writing and publishing Hot People Don’t Wear Underwear, when struck with these thoughts this morning.

While I wrote the first half, I thought, “No way can I publish this one day after the self-dox,” but by the second half, it became clear that there’s no time like the present—consequences be damned.

I am greedy to keep the momentum going after On Breasts: The Hang Coefficient. And while I think Hot People Don’t Wear Underwear will be of interest to many of you, this horny-post probably has a better chance of quenching my thirst for more subscriptions.

A fractal is a set whose parts are, in some sense, similar to the whole.

— Benoit Mandelbrot (1982)

The pussy is what we desire more than anything else on earth. It's mysterious, hard to fully comprehend—in many ways, it's a cipher. To break this cipher, we must adopt a fractal perspective. The reason for this is that we encounter no part of her more fractally than we do her pussy. Her pussy is a fractal of her, and she is a fractal of her pussy.

The Lily

First, consider the lily. I want you to study the lilies in the next photo. What you might notice is that all parts of them, at every level, are bursting forth, opening to the world, as though that were their sole and entire purpose—to open. This is what you must understand about the pussy. I repeat, all parts of her are fractals of her pussy, and her pussy is a fractal of her. You must see her pussy as you see lilies if you are to truly understand.

It’s Between Dimensions And It’s In Between Her Legs

You see, fractals are measures of dimension, not just self-repeating patterns. Fractals are shapes with a non-integer dimension. Fractals are individuated by the specificity of their dimension. There are many fractal sets that we know of, supposedly hundreds. Some are more commonly known than others. One such fractal family set is the Julia Set.

The Julia Set

Lilies and what lives between her legs are near to one another in the liminal space between 1D and 2D. There is a family of fractals, aptly called the Julia Set, one of which has a dimension of 1.2683D. I feel they may be the fractal family most fitting for our task.

Note both images' similarity to the lily. Allow yourself to see the Julia Set in the lily. If you think of fractals as merely self-repeating, you misunderstand them. I think if you look hard enough, you will be able to see the connection between the lily and the Julia Set.

Every woman's pussy is a lily, and the lily’d nature of her pussy can best be understood when we think in fractal dimensions. How perfectly does her pussy embody everything about her? How much of her complete being flows into what we see when we are with her in the most intimate of ways? How much of her pussy flows outward into the rest of her?

Understanding the lily helps us see the Julia Set in her. There is a kind of unfurling that we must take care to observe, and that is why we use the lily to bridge the Julia Set to her pussy.

How Fractal Is She?

Let's start here, somewhat removed. Her pussy is still present to us even when it's not up close. We are zoomed out on the fractal between her legs. We see it from afar, but we can still easily discern that its structure is very much present and radiating out into the rest of her. In the photos below, we are able to readily understand that the pussy is, indeed, always informed by the broader whole of the woman herself.

Everything around it is flowing into what is between her legs. Or is it the other way around? What is certain is that the pussy and all the rest of her are totally connected. There are currents of connection coursing between every aspect of her and her pussy.

Her Lily’d Nature

Her entire being comes to be represented in her pussy. In the first photo below, we catch a glimpse of her fingers. Their form, the unique lines that constitute their character, are all somehow also present in her pussy.

In the other photos, we see the Julia Set resemblance much more clearly. The more aware we are of the Julia Set, the more we can imagine the rest of her. From only these images, we are able to sense what her fuller form might be, but it's only a feeling. All we really know is that all of her is present right here, right here in her pussy. This is why, when we are between her legs, we are able to know the whole of her.

The aspects of the pussy that represent a lily are quite clear to us. She is flowering for us in various degrees, and this helps us understand her pussy's nature as very similar to that of a lily.

In Full Bloom

In the next two photos, we observe the pussy straight on, and it's undeniable now. In the first photo, her pussy is closed to us, much like a lily before it blooms, and yet still so very beautiful. In the second photo, it is in full bloom, a marvelous sight that exposes her many petals to us.

Having opened to us, we are able to catch a glimpse of what lies within. Her clitoris is now visible to us. In the lily, this is called the stigma. These are the hidden surprises waiting for us when either flower or woman comes to life and truly blooms.

It is here that we will focus our attention when we tend her garden. It is from here that we will radiate pleasure up and into her, and in return, she will rain satisfaction down upon us. As we direct our energy into her, the entirety of her will fully flower for us. It will happen slowly at first, but then, in a few moments of pure ecstasy, it will happen all at once and suddenly.

Do You See?

Her pussy is a lily. It is a fractal of her, and she is a fractal of it. And the Julia Set holds the key to understanding both the flower's and the female's fractal essence.

Dimensionally, it's between integers. In the garden, it's the most beautiful flower of all. And within her… it's right between her legs.

Thanks for reading.

As with all things on the internet, the latest viral sensation is deeply misunderstood. Many people genuinely think that this is a discussion about male physiques; I can assure you that it is nothing of the sort.

The medium is the message.

— Marshall McLuhan

Before and after gym transformation photo-series are one thing to men and an entirely different thing to women. To men, they are concrete and material data that can be used to compare past with present and assess progress. In three words, it’s all plot. They are just what they appear to be: two photos, one next to the other, that literally plot the progress of your physique-building in a visual way. To a man, there is no overall story being shown.

To women, before and after gym transformations are all narrative minus the plot. To women, these before and afters tell a story that is all but unseen by the men who observe the same sets of photos. There’s a lot that goes into why the storytelling of even the most transcendent of transformations elicits the ick, and I will delve into some of those shortly. First, I must set the stage a bit.

On Cool

First, some middle-school psychology. Ever heard the word cool? Yeah, well, as much as you think you and your buddies care about cool, I can assure you, women care about seeing cool in you much, much more. Cool is what is meant by redpillers when they say stuff like, “don’t be unattractive.” Cool is what chicks actually mean when they refer to big dick energy, aura, etc. And cool is much more about your past, present, and future than it is about a snapshot of your present.

Cool evokes effortlessness, natural instinct, and a sense of, I was always like this. This is at the core of why redpillers’ number one rule is “don’t talk about redpill,” because if you need a book to teach you how to relate to women and make them horny, that’s incredibly corrosive to cool, my friend.

On Physique

A hot physique on a man is more attractive the less he acknowledges it. Elite physique and no shaker bottle on the counter? No discernible diet? No knowledge of Cronometer? That’s extremely attractive. Elite physique and your new girlfriend doesn’t even know what gym you go to, or when you find the time, or if you even go to the gym at all? That’s S-tier.

Contrast this with a guy married for a decade who is finally getting into shape and talks about it every single time he returns from the gym. He begs for acknowledgment from his girl; she catches him looking at himself in the mirror; he might even prompt her for direct compliments. Not very attractive, definitely not cool. Indeed, it’s actively hurting the situation, and no level of physique will make up for it. You are literally wasting your time or making things worse if you are deadlifting and crowing about it to her every night.

A hot physique achieved through overdosing on Huberman Lab, neurotic mindfulness of macros, and foam rolling your traps in front of your girl is extremely unattractive and borders on being downright homosexual. A hot physique, never acknowledged, that exists on its own as if it were won through effortlessness—that’s extremely attractive. That’s a cool dude with a great physique.

Before and After Is Never Cool

Wow, hot body he’s got there in his after photo. I wonder what traumatic knock to his self-esteem caused him to pursue this new physique? How come I cannot see his hot body anymore and am only feeling this deep sense of ew? Maybe ripped physiques are bad? Yeah that’s it.

— Every Woman Ever

The before and after photo-series violates the cool and effortless principle by default.

1. You are documenting your progress, taking photos of your body, looking to measure the slightest hints of gains. You are showcasing an extreme level of self-consciousness as regards your physique. Not cool.

2. You are, in some cases, sharing it with others, or at worst, sharing it with the whole world on the internet. You are attention-seeking and looking for validation from outside of yourself. Not cool.

3. You are implicitly acknowledging that not too long ago, you allowed your body to become an embarrassment to you, enough that you decided to pursue a good physique. You are yelling out, “I wasn’t happy with myself not too long ago.” You are literally highlighting recent self-esteem deficits in yourself. Not cool.

4. You are making women wonder why you felt the need to pursue a physique. Their minds quickly go to bad breakup, depressive episode, can’t get laid, or some variant of those ideas. Not cool.

5. Your toothy, prideful smile in your after photo induces nuclear levels of ick; it makes her see you as a child begging mommy for affirmation. Not cool.

In sum, the before and after gym transformation tells a story that is inherently negative in the minds of women. In the before photo, at least you are your natural self, somewhat comfortable, maybe slightly cool, even if it is showcasing a somewhat decrepit dad-bod. It’s who you actually are, and there’s at least something meritorious about that in most cases.

In the after photo, you have a better physique, but, by comparison to your former self, you exude feelings of longing, unfulfilled desires, and you are obviously a striver for higher-end pussy than you’ve ever tasted. Not a great look.

The photos together may as well force her to construct a narrative arc about you that will always be negative: one of a man who had to change, not one of a man who was born to it naturally. This is ick-inducing. Women don’t get wet for how hard you must’ve worked to achieve your physique. They dry up thinking about the fact that you needed to do it at all.

When a 7 sees you out on the street rocking your new physique and a cool effortlessness, she’s gonna be into it. But in the context of the before and after transformation, you’re giving the truth away. She can literally see the giddiness on after-you’s face that says, “Oh boy, I might be able to get 7s instead of 5s and 6s now!” This is deeply unattractive. Very much not cool.

Aesthetics

As with all amateur male photography, you make all the wrong choices: you give no consideration to lighting, the background escapes your notice, your pose is weird, etc. But forgetting that, the choices made in your after photo are especially despicable. As already mentioned, you smile like a child, begging for mommy’s validation. What’s more, you flex like Arnold, something you’re not accustomed to doing—exuding awkwardness. Somewhat terrifyingly, you are all of a sudden in your newly purchased tight underwear, or worse, you’ve tucked your shorts up in one of the strangest decisions imaginable. Again, you have no experience wearing tight undies or tucked-up shorts, so of course you look strange. You usually draw extra attention to all of this by being dressed like a normal person in your before photo.

Worse, in most cases, you are showcasing an average package, not realizing that tight, speedo-like adornment is probably best reserved for those of significant stature.

NOTE: Don’t be self-conscious of your size, its probably fine, but unless you actually hang serious dong, its probably best to stay away from drawing attention to it.

Why Are You Hairless?

Many times, you’ve even shaved your body for some strange reason! Again, this all serves to paint a narrative in her mind. She begins to ask questions like:

• Is this guy becoming gay the more weight he puts on the bar?

• Has he never been worshipped as a sex object before?

• What was his sex life like before? Probably not so good if he felt the need to transform so thoroughly.

• Why is he smiling like a little boy who just won a trophy?

• What’s with the bizarre obsession with his own quadricep muscles?

The before and after transformation photo-series transforms you, in her mind, into a self-conscious loser who, as a person requiring transformation at all, is unattractive. She isn’t seeing two photos side by side and comparing them like your buddies are; she’s constructing your whole life arc in her mind, and she’s not doing so charitably.

Having Had a Physique

Having a physique isn’t what’s hot to a woman, not primarily at least. Having had a physique for a long time is what makes you hot to a woman, among other things. This is because women know what having had a physique means. It means you’ve fucked and been fucking. She unconsciously paints narratives about how many women you’ve fucked when you present with a good physique. Whereas in a transformation photo-series, she wonders if maybe you weren’t getting any at all and that’s why you felt the need to so thoroughly transform. This isn’t attractive to women. Women like confidence, stability, and been here plenty of times before type vibes.

Your before might even look good by comparison because you at least seem somewhat comfortable and not needy beyond belief. Your after scares them away because you are so clearly new to having a physique. Heck, it even evokes the idea that you probably won’t be able to keep it, that it’s just a temporary glitch, a trick. Women’s worst fear, literally, is being tricked.

So then these women experience all of these emotions after viewing a before and after transformation collage and say things like, “I prefer the before, actually.” Well, yeah, given the choice between dad-bod dude who has a bit of cool to him and shredded striver dude who has deep insecurities and zero cool, women will usually choose the former if they must choose at all in order to be seen and heard from on the timeline. And then men hop into the replies to argue, not understanding that these women are commenting on how these photos make them feel and that the ladies are not talking about the aesthetics of what they see at all.

Old Money Versus New

Women don’t evaluate men on their aesthetic appearance anything like the way we do them. But when it’s old you against new you, the lack of importance they place on aesthetics goes into overdrive. A man’s physique is much more about what it represents.

The coolest thing about being hot is how long you’ve gotten to live like that. When you’ve lived with a hot physique forever, she thinks to herself, “I wonder who got to enjoy that physique in Paris a decade ago? I wonder how beautiful she was? I wonder if she was prettier than me?”

Us men, we see a babe, and we try not to think about what her being a babe might mean with regards to things like her sexual history, if it even occurs to us at all. We focus on the now! We think, “She’s hot, and I want that.” Women do not operate like this at all. They see a narrative story when they observe men. Show a man a before and after transformation series of a woman, and he’ll just evaluate it on the merits, end of story.

In Real Life

When after-photo dude is on the street with his new body and he encounters women who never knew him before he attained it, they can imagine, at least in the beginning before he loses frame, that that’s what the dude was always like. They can get horny at the idea of what life adventures his physique has taken him on. And then they prepare to explode over the thought of the adventures he and his physique might take her on.

As he puts more and more mileage into his physique, he will become less conscious of it and more accustomed to life as a guy with a physique. This will compound the effects of having a physique, and he will slowly transform into a guy who has had a physique all along, helping him to unlock higher and higher quality women. But in the context of the before/after, his new physique does nothing but create ick in the minds of women.

This is because before and after transformations, when viewed by women, always tell a negative story. They tell a story of a man who once was, very recently, not: cool, attractive, jacked, etc. And sometimes, in their confusion over this, they think they prefer the schlub they see in the before photo because… they kinda do, at least in that context.

In the medium of the before and after photo-series, he’s got the physique, but because he’s drawing attention to the contrast, she knows that he doesn’t have what the physique is meant to signal. And what the physique signals is what the woman actually craves; the physique itself is just the extra cherry on top for her.

I was just like you, prolific in the groupchat: confessional, funny, and ever-present with a quip or sometimes a full-blown screed. It was a sign of a deep longing to publish. To write and perhaps most important of all, to be read.

If you are receiving this linked article from someone, it’s because you are one of those people. You’re crushing it in the groupchat, but it’s time to grow up, it’s time to accept your calling young man. It’s time to put your work out into the world. It’s time to publish. The Golden Age is upon is, it’s time for your work to see the light of day.

What’s Your Style?

There are two main places to publish the types of writing you probably produce. You can do so on X or Substack, or both. If you’re a man whose style closely hews to brevity is the soul of wit, X might be a good place for you. If, like me, your blue bubbles in the groupchat frequently span multiple vertical swipes or sometimes even trigger abridgment (the iOS > see more feature), then maybe Substack is a better place for you. Again, you can’t go wrong with both, but know what to post where.

Who Are You?

You can use your real name if you want. But I recommend a pseudonym, particularly for lords of the groupchat. It’s likely that the subjects you attend to in the groupchat, which will serve as the basis for your new publishing career, are not always things you want associated with your name. Yes, if you achieve any level of notoriety in the future, Antifa will dox you; I promise you that you are not boring enough to be considered acceptable. Your friends, family, and internet mutuals will be alarmed at what they learn about you. But you’ll be famous at that point, and this will serve to salve the pain for the most part. Your friends, family, and mutuals will forgive you quickly. The groupchat will get over it. Give no thought to your eventual doxxing; unless you’re really and truly great, it won’t happen. And if it does happen, it means you’ve made it.

Your name should speak to you. Not anyone else. Make it something that you relate to, such that when you see it printed at the top of your articles, it makes you smile every time. Clever, funny, relevant to others, none of that matters. The name is for you and you alone. You’re not a growth hacker, you’re a writer. When your new mutuals start using it to address you, it should make you feel good every single time.

The First Article

Okay, you’re all set up. Time for your first article. Oh no. This is such an unfamiliar feeling. All tense, like trying to take a dump at the 50-yard line during the Super Bowl halftime show. Don’t panic. Close the tab or app. And forget about it.

In the next few days, just as has been happening for years, you’ll be struck by a lightning bolt. You open the groupchat, maybe you’re already in it. Perfect.

Close the groupchat, open Substack or X, and hit the plus icon. Begin to write. Write exactly as if you’re writing to the groupchat. Let it flow out of you. If for some reason you get composition window anxiety, just do it in the groupchat text entry and then copy/paste it into the compose window later.

Editing Helps

Close the compose window. Take a deep breath and smile to yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back. You’re almost there. I’d say the hard part is over, but it’s not. Unlike in groupchats, you’re going to want to establish a practice of editing that is more robust than what you are used to. Don’t worry. You will get the hang of it quickly. But in the beginning, it’s a bit maddening.

As time goes on, you will refine your writing style in a manner that allows for a much easier editing process. But in the beginning, your shit is probably going to lack cohesive structure, commas, and other hallmarks of good publishing. This is usually a product of too much groupchat usage. It will get better quickly, I promise.

Hit Send

Okay. You’ve come this far. Time to hit publish. I’ve got bad news for you. Nothing is going to happen. Actually, less than nothing. You’re used to a few haha and heart bubbles from other members of the groupchat. None of that is waiting for you on the other side of the publish button here today.

This is okay. Steel yourself to this inevitability. In time, it will change if you’re half as decent a writer as the person who sent this to you thinks you are. And you probably are. Go back to the groupchat, send in an abridged version or a copy/paste of the whole thing if you think it’s still appropriate. If not, that’s fine. Just do something else for a bit.

Take A Deep Breath

If you used Substack, come back in an hour and open up your article inside of the app. Press the play button (change the voice AI to Taylor in the settings—I find her voice extremely erotic, perhaps you will too) and hear as a sultry female voice reads your brilliant work aloud.

Feel the horniness for your own words stir inside of you; notice that this hits almost as much as the hearts and hahas you often get in the groupchat. Almost.

Learn A Bit About ‘Sales’

Now, see this note by about how to capture some eyeballs for your work.

It’s more of an indirect process than you might think. Engage with others on here earnestly in their comments, learn the lingo. Think of it as being the same as when you riff off of something your friend puts into the groupchat. Same idea. But maybe be a bit less graphic and uncouth than you otherwise would be. This is a classy joint.

Repeat this process over and over again. Avoid smoking a joint (you shouldn’t be smoking any joints at all) and listening to your own Substack masterpieces over and over again. This is called narcissistic Substack gooning and is not a recommended habit. Occasional indulgence, maybe. Habit, definitely not.

Learn about the nuances of Substack, adjust the aesthetics of your profile and publication, write some copy on your about page, explore the labyrinthine settings, etc. Congratulations. You’ve done it. You’re now a writer. We’re all very excited to see how far you can get.

Don’t Forget Where You Came From

Don’t forget the groupchat. Those are your friends, after all. Keep some of your ideas for the groupchat; don’t become neurotic over doxxing yourself to them when you copy/paste some of your work from one to the other sometimes. None of them are googling you, that I can promise you. The groupchat is what made you. In a way, those guys are the guys who discovered you. Don’t neglect them. The title of the article is only meant to grab attention, something you’ll learn more about as you progress. The groupchat isn’t a ghetto at all, it’s the reason you are here.

Good luck!

Inspiration

This post was inspired by a friend of mine who, in front of other groupchatters IRL, earnestly encouraged me by praising some of my “work” published to the groupchat over the years, asserting that I could probably “do really well” in the bloodsport of Internet publishing, at least as a hobby.

In response, I gave my many reasons for why I hadn’t taken to the internet to write very much. But that night, after everyone had left and I was cleaning up, I realized it was all just fear and cope holding me back from doing something I might be really good at.

I signed up for Substack that night.

I even self-doxxed to him directly a few days later, despite the really awkward first true post I had just penned for my debut. I wanted him to know that I appreciated his encouragement and that it had caused me to take swift immediate action. Friends oftentimes know you much better than you know yourself. If they are telling you you’re a writer, you probably are. Maybe it’s time for you to find out.

To that friend of mine, if he’s made it this far, thank you, truly.

NOTE: Maybe you’re a writer or more of a reader yourself. But for whatever reason, you’re already here on Substack. Think for a minute about the people you know. Is there anyone that you know who might benefit from receiving a link to this article? Probably, there’s always that one guy who is prolific in the groupchat. Consider sending this to him.

Thanks for reading.

Size of breast fundamentally comes down to personal preference. I’m sorry to tell you this, but there are no shortcuts in matters of taste. On its own, separate from the whole, size is a meaningless vector for a substantive aesthetic analysis. If we must isolate one single factor, for the sake of virality, the qualitative factor most linked to the universal aesthetic of perfection in breasts is the hang.

Big, small, asymmetric, tuberous, plump, flat, areolic, or not, all of these are just variables that combine into the overall aesthetic composition of the hang of the breasts. The hang is what truly matters; it is what most evokes man’s passion for the feminine breast. The hang is what counts most for the true connoisseur.

Movement And Transformation

Observe this gallery; all photographs are of the same woman with exceptionally large breasts and high aesthetic hang coefficient. See how the breasts are free to move, become unbalanced, and transform endlessly. This fluidity of the breasts satiates our innate human desire for endless change. The slightest change to her posture unlocks new feasts for the eyes. This set of photographs entices us to imagine the full range of possibilities which, thanks to exceptional hang, appear endless to us.

There is an implication of delicate balance in every frame. In person, the viewer comes away with the feeling that certain views will never be seen again. The degree of arousal, the precise pose, the angle of observation, the moment in time—it’s all flowing into the compositions before us; it won’t last but a moment.

Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

— Homer, The Iliad

The hang accounts for the living aspect of breasts; it acknowledges their effervescent nature. The possibilities stretch like the infinite universe itself, exploding outward in a torrent of expansiveness. With her arms stretched above her head, they approximate a warrior’s armor. With hands across her belly, they are transformed into symbols of nourishment. With her back to the camera, the breast peeks out and entices us to adopt a more curious posture towards her. When she is bent over, their heft is quite literally felt within us.

No Less Expansive

Breast size discourse misses the point. Observe the next gallery of another model, still sizable, but with a great deal smaller breasts than the previous example. Here we see the same capacity for infinite movement and transformation. The possibilities are no less expansive in scope just because she has a smaller stature of breast. Again, her hang coefficient is magnificent.

Their movement is still capable of similar inspirations as the bustier specimen. Indeed, when we observe her on her back with hips in the air, the breasts recede a great deal into her body—a marvelous discovery that inspires intrigue and an arousing sense of confusion. It reminds us that we have limited understanding of the true mechanics of her form.

Her breasts’ capacity for change is no less than that of the former model. In some of the photos, we observe a racked-up beauty; in others, her chestiness is significantly suppressed. The effect is the same: it takes our imagination on a rollercoaster ride of possibility.

We don’t truly understand, but we sense that all of the parts play a role in constructing the hang. The nipple’s construction, its level of arousal at the moment the shutter clicks, the mass, the unseen musculature beneath the breasts—it all comes together to form the whole. We catch glimpses of this complete architecture when we train our focus on the hang. The hang is our key to unlocking these mysteries; it is our Rosetta Stone to her form.

Careful Discernment

As we move further down the stack, examples of elite hang coefficient become a bit harder to find online. In smaller-breasted specimens, pose becomes more essential for proper evaluation. Here we see exceptional examples of the hang. Viewed from the side, we are able to spy her breasts delicate contouring. The second photo shows off the capacity for the underside of her breasts to create enticing lines.

Another model, presented further down, exhibits a sensual straightness, a kind of reverse J present at her inner breast—a most welcome byproduct of the hang. In the second frame, we observe her breast from the side; her posture retracts the hang somewhat, and this serves to emphasize the hang even further, stirring our imagination even more. We can’t help but feel, along with her, the postural changes that cause this hang alteration within her. We imagine the textural changes we might be able to notice, were we there with her, able to engage the breast manually.

Yes, as we get smaller, the hang is less severe overall, but it’s effect is still totally present, just as complete as in the others. It’s just that there is less dynamic range required to achieve the same effects as in the bustier women. The capacity for alluring movement is still there; the possibility of transformation is no less present due to the smaller size—they just require more careful discernment from us.

Suboptimal Hang

Here are two examples of poor hang coefficient in otherwise stunning specimens. Perhaps these counter-examples will help you to more fully understand the hang.

Remember, a photo captures a moment in time, so some of these subjects are indeed capable of poses that bring them nearer to optimal hang. But these particular photos capture suboptimal hang and are presented for the purposes of learning. Of course, there are also many examples of too much hang, incorrect hang, etc. But we will not be covering any of that in this piece here today. Today’s piece is about what makes the perfect breasts, not what does not.

Movements That Move Us

The hang is about a capacity for movement, a boundlessness, a potential for energy, it’s about the infinite possibility for transformation; it stuns us into a sense of wonder as we contemplate the sheer scale of what has been, what is right now, and what could be.

The hang…

…makes the beauty of breasts infinite; it unlocks a world in which anything is possible, it inspires us to think about the sprawling nature of everything. The hang reminds us that without movement there is no life, and that is precisely why the hang moves us so.

Thanks for reading.

Inspiration

This post was inspired by the viral photo of the Europeans (or were they Americans?), smoking at a cafe table outside in Italy this weekend. There is a very beautiful woman in the photo, I was surprised to see so little attention paid to her beauty. I believe she is likely to have elite hang, which got me thinking.

I want you to picture your father as he was at your present age. If your mother has some photos, even better; no imagination necessary. Is the man you are picturing more or less masculinized than the one you see in the mirror? If I had to guess, for at least 8/10 of you, the answer is that your father at your age was far more androgenic than you. No, don't blame your mom; this is not a story of genetics. Epigenetics, yes, but genetics? Not at all.

The baby boomer generation was the last generation to grow up before the iron curtain of modern endocrinological tyranny fully descended upon us all. As such, their cohort contains many of the last true men still walking the earth today. Yes, they face endocrinological assault daily, just like the rest of us today. They've been in the trenches alongside us for decades, but the key difference between them and us is that they were not in the trenches for the first decade or two of their lives. Boomers are the last generation of men who did not face the merciless onslaught of modernity during their developmental phase.

Their childhood and teen years took place right before modernity began to swallow the world whole. This is one of the reasons why the boomers have been, and still remain, one of the most potent political and cultural forces in our society. And it's also why one of your plates (see: spinning plates) is probably also plating for a boomer who just got divorced.

NOTE: For purposes of this article, I am ONLY talking about non-obese, metabolically healthy human beings. This article is only interested in those not suffering from extreme metabolic dysfunction, chronic inflammation, etc.

The Data

Testosterone, and more importantly, DHT (dihydrotestosterone), levels have plummeted in the last century. This chart only shows the last two decades, but it illustrates the point. If this much damage has been done in only the last 20 years, I shudder to think about what the fuller series might look like. Alas, I wasn't able to find a longer series easily, and I don't think it particularly necessary to illustrate the point. The point is, most millennial males are probably, quite literally, half the men their fathers were.

DHT levels are correlated with overall testosterone levels, so we can assume that declines in total testosterone correlate with lower Free T, DHT, higher estrogen, etc. This article isn't too concerned with convincing you that endocrine function is totally fucked in the present era; I am sure that there are millions of articles on here about that already. I'm more interested in discussing the society-wide effects of improper developmental androgenization for the youth and what having one living generation without this handicap is doing to our society.

Were I to sum this up into a perverse anecdote, it would be this: your father's cock is probably significantly girthier than yours. Insofar as you think about your cock size at all, you probably think about its length, but the truth is total mass, therefore accounting for girth, is 1) what counts most in the bedroom and 2) what reveals your level of androgenicity during development. This is a riff on the famous DHT-Taint relationship studies that went viral years ago.

Less perverted signs of high androgenicity during development:

• Proper facial development (brow ridge, jaw, nose, eyes, etc.)

• Surplus of body hair

• Proper male smell (pheromones, general body odor, etc.)

• Consistent low-grade effortless stoic mindset

• Better instincts for frame and game with women

• Resistance to stress

• And more.

Inherited Wealth vs. High Income

Yes, many are taking to injections and using other methods to restore their androgenic potential, but using exogenous hormones to re-androgenize in mid or even early life is not the same as properly androgenizing during the developmental phase. It's the difference between wealth and income. With proper development, as many boomers got, they are sitting on a nest egg of hormonal wealth for the rest of their life. They can grow this windfall, watching it compound over time (or waste it, as many no doubt do). Whereas the re-androgenizer has figured out a way to generate high income, he will never have the compounding nest egg as a base of support. In other words, they'll always struggle to come up with the down payment.

Re-androgenizers will notice changes to the above list as they re-androgenize through TRT, etc., but the permanent long-term effect of androgenizing properly during the developmental phase can never be matched. There's something deeply unique to proper androgenization during your developmental phase that can't ever be totally reversed.

NOTE: This is not a call to blackpill. You absolutely should work out, eat right, get sunlight, and inject hormones if you want to find your androgenic maximum. It will surprise you how far you can get. It's just to note that there are fundamental differences between those who properly androgenize during development and those who do not.

Children Today

Yes, some androgenically healthy children are always being bred in small pockets here and there, probably more now, thanks to the advent of based spergaloid parents, but that is a relatively small coterie, and it's not yet clear to me that even the most careful of parents can actually recreate the Garden of Eden that the boomers grew up in.

The poison of the modern world is all-pervasive, and even if one could protect their child, it seems the psychological effects of growing up on a homestead in 2025 might just create newer varieties of problems. This is to say nothing of the problem of choosing correctly. As it pertains to vaccines, nutrition, etc., it's not entirely clear that we even know the right tack to take in order to recreate the boomers' conditions (perhaps worth exploring in future articles).

A Sol-Brah-ish type regimen of wellness does seem to be emerging that has much to recommend it, but the options available to a parent are many, and few will successfully navigate all of the forks in the road well. Making most of the right choices, the way that boomers' parents were able to do without even thinking about it, will be a challenge even for the MAHA-est of MAHA moms out there.

Let's dive into an example or two of how boomer hormonal supremacy is affecting the world around us.

Generation Cialis

Forget the fertility crisis; many ostensible grandparents are not grandparents the way they used to be understood. Boomer endocrinological supremacy has made it such that the newer generations' relative hormonal weakness, as compared to their parents, causes these aging boomers to be far too virile in relation to the whole of society. Add to it the sometimes effective healthcare industrial complex, and you have 70-year-old men going on hunting trips, getting divorced, buying McLarens, and riding motorcycles to their thriving small businesses, which all but run themselves.

By contrast, large swathes of the newer generations of Americans are anxious, tired, risk-averse, and unattractive across all vectors to women. The reason the boomer can't slow down is not just because of their famous selfishness; they can't slow down because there is so little competition from the generations beneath them to make them do so. The forcing function is broken.

In the past, whether a man had grandchildren or not, by age 65, it was sweaters, some dogs, a recliner, perhaps alcoholism, a new hobby, and the daily newspaper. If he was lucky, his old maid was still there for him. Nowadays, that same boomer man (grandkids or no grandkids) is literally on dating apps pulling 30-something spinsters, at the gym crushing it, and holding court with his pals at his favorite local high-end restaurant. Why learn carpentry as a hobby in your backyard as a retiree when there are millions of mentally ill 30-something women craving nothing more than to curl up on your hairy chest and inhale the scent of a real man?

In the movie Gran Torino (he's not a boomer, I get it, but still), there wasn't a subplot where Clint Eastwood's character was banging out some 39-year-old Accenture consultant, but if we're being realistic, a version of that movie based on a slightly younger 70-year-old boomer absolutely could include that without the audience batting an eye.

This is because of their relative status within our society. These are some of the last true men remaining in our society. What's more is that many of them are extremely wealthy; they often have very good instinctual frame/game, and they are swimming in a pond full of hormonally deformed men who, though younger than them, may as well not be.

To be clear, I am not blaming the boomers for taking full advantage. Were I in their position, I probably would too. The point is, boomers' relative status in society is utterly unprecedented. Never in human history has there been a large class of retirees that are hormonally superior to the vast majority of the youthful population.

Women, Sex, and Generation Alpha

Women have been noticing. The ladies are noticing! The relative decay of men in the younger generations is making these endocrinologically supreme boomer males an attractive option for ladies, where, once upon a time, this would have been pretty unusual (though not unheard of).

Karoline Leavitt is an interesting current example. This is her and her husband; his name is Nicholas Riccio, and he is 59 years old. While technically not a boomer (one year off), he perfectly illustrates the point. Look at this guy; now compare him to your typical millennial homosapien. He may as well be full Neanderthal by comparison.

Yes, this guy is rich, has status, good frame, all that shit. And sure, he's probably using PEDs and all sorts of things to maintain his vitality into old age. But the fact is, this guy is more androgenic than most men of the millennial cohort will ever be, no matter how many needles they use. Hormonally, he has high income and significant wealth saved up.

And no, this isn't a genetic story; it's a, what was the world like when this guy developed into a man, story. This is an, I played in the sun naked without sunscreen, story. This is an I wasn't given 87 vaccinations as a child story. This is a my mom ate a saturated fat-rich diet and breastfed me, story. This is a, two of my friends died in a car crash when I was 16, story, etc., etc.

To use a redpill term, this guy is more alpha than most millennials could ever hope to be. And it's not just because of his genetics; it's because he is one of the last men to be born and developed before the iron curtain of globo-homo began salting the earth with xeno-estrogens, bad nutrition advice, and destroying the ability for our sons to properly androgenize during their formative years.

Hormonal Wealth Gap

Much ink has been spilled over the idea of wealth and income disparity in America and elsewhere, but not enough has been written about the deep hormonal wealth gaps between boomers and the younger generations.

This article is meant to set the stage for many future articles describing and analyzing the effects of Boomer Hormonal Supremacy on our world. For now, I suggest going out into the world and seeing if what I have described is something you notice out there.

NOTE: I don't suggest buying a tailor's tape and asking your dad to whip it out. Don't be weird.

Lastly, I leave you with these two photos. One is of Andrew Tate; the other is a supposed photo (although it looks almost AI-generated to me) of his father, Emory Tate. It's not the best comparison due to the race-mixing and Andrew clearly being more muscular, but I would suggest that if you look closely and don't let yourself get bogged down in meme-physiognomy, you might just notice that Emory seems to have Andrew beat when it comes to hormonal inheritance. You can tell that Emory grew up in a world before widespread endocrinological terror. One has high income, the other more wealth.

And yes, this article was inspired by a plate of mine letting slip that she occasionally sees a boomer for similar activities. I suppose it is a commentary on my own hormonal wealth that she felt comfortable letting this be known to me. I suspect my boomer eskimo-cousin has not heard of me at all, she knows better than to ever bring it up to him. Nevertheless, I chose to inquire a bit and write up this article based upon it. Perhaps, I'll never see her again because of this. Oh well.

In future articles I will explore topics like:

• When the boomers die, will this problem sort itself out? A sort of socialized lowering of the hormonal standards society-wide?

• Boomers never retire, is this caused by this phenomenon?

• Age Gap discourse fails to account for this phenomenon? Is the sexual marketplace being influenced by this phenomenon more than RedPillers and Feminists want to admit?

• Will Barron Trump end up masculinizing in an equivalent fashion to that of his father Donald Trump? Melania seems to have put every care into ensuring this. If it cannot be achieved by her, what hope is there for the rest of us?

• Can we estimate the prevalence of True Males (proper androgenic development) in each generational cohort?

• Will women lower their standards as the largest cohort of true males dies / becomes sexually non-viable? Can you pine for a true male if you’ve never seen one in person?

• What will become of motorcycles in the future?

• Will we experience more or less socio-political unrest as the boomers die off and we are left with precious few individuals who underwent proper androgenic development?

To New Readers

I am just starting my writing career. This article is a post in my new publication, To The Cypress Tree. I plan to attend to many varieties of subjects that may interest you. Your subscription and/or follow would be very much appreciated.

I am on here and on X.

Thanks for reading.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, almost certainly suffered from severe pelvic floor dysfunction. His struggles with digestive upset are famous, but the root cause was never discovered by him or others… until now.

Nietzsche’s constipation and numerous other health issues can be primarily explained by extreme hypertonicity (tightness) of the pelvic floor. Nietzsche relentlessly searched for a cure, often trying peculiar diets. But I assert that his numerous health problems were not downstream of his diet, the climate, or whatever else, but instead entirely downstream of his pelvic floor dysfunction. Correcting his pelvic floor dysfunction would have been likely to alleviate his chronic constipation, which could have relieved many, if not all, of his other health complaints.

What is the pelvic floor?

Nietzsche had a pelvic floor and you do too. The pelvic floor is a complex of muscles comprising your bottom. I am trying to be more serious for this article but they are best described as the trapezius muscles for your asshole. They are what you relax when you pee or poop (ideally), you feel them squeeze during orgasm, and for many men, they are far too tight all of the time. If you’ve ever tried to kegel, you’re flexing a part of your pelvic floor.

NOTE: Don’t kegel young man. It’s very unlikely that you need to tighten your pelvic floor. If anything, you need to reverse-kegel. Practice mind-muscle-connected relaxation of this muscle complex unless you want to end up like Nietzsche in the bathroom department.

Nietzsches Biggest Complaint

Nietzsche’s health complaints are famous. He was never particularly healthy as a young man, and his health challenges followed him for life, worsening with age. He complained of migraines, vision issues, insomnia, back pain, and, chief among them, bowel / digestive issues.

If anything can be said definitively about Nietzsche’s health, it is that he was a lifelong constipation sufferer.

“Nietzsche’s digestive troubles were a constant torment, with bouts of nausea, vomiting, and irregular bowel movements that left him weakened and unable to work for days. He often attributed these to poor diet or the strain of his intellectual labors, seeking relief in everything from vegetarianism to warm climates."

— Curtis Cate, Friedrich Nietzsche (2005), p. 237

It is my belief that his chronic unresolved constipation was caused by his hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction. And that many of the other health issues that he suffered from were caused by the chronic constipation, just as they are today. Just as they always have been.

“When the belly is obstructed and the residues of food are not expelled, they become putrefied, and this putrefaction spreads to the rest of the body, causing fevers and other disturbances.”

— Hippocrates, Regimen in Acute Diseases, Section 9

Defecation Then

Nietzsche lived from October 15, 1844, to August 25, 1900, spending his entire life in continental Europe. Much is known about the bathroom habits of that time. He would’ve defecated in two main ways.

The first was using an outhouse-like structure, where the defecator would sit on a bench with a hole cut out to allow stool to pass into a pit below. One would position the anus above this hole and proceed to defecate. Each bench was unique, being a handcrafted item. Maybe they were similar in height to chairs of the time, around 17-19 inches off the floor. It’s possible that defecation benches were lower to assist bowel release, but it’s unclear to me if optimal defecation height was understood by those where and when Nietzsche lived and traveled.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche is estimated to have been 5’8”. Modern science suggests the optimal toilet height for a 5’8” man is about 12-14 inches, because this allows the knees to be 4-6 inches above the hips.

If these benches were similar height to chairs of the time, not ideal at all. But even if the benches were lower than chairs of the day, it’s easy to adopt improper posture and lose any semblance of proper technique when seated on a cold wooden bench atop a landfill of human feces with the threat of wolves lurking in the dark just outside the door. Doubly so if one has never been taught the right technique in the first place.

Regardless, Nietzsche would have also made extensive use of chamber pots. Better, right? Squatting naturally. Not so fast. Extensive squatting, without pelvic floor awareness, particularly for prolonged periods, often leads to increased pelvic floor tension as the user strains to push the stool through the rectum and out of the anus.

As Nietzsche's constipation advanced, he was likely squatted over the chamber pot—literally willing himself to power out the fecal matter that plagued him. All to no avail, and much to his own destruction, unbeknownst to him.

Defecation Now

Indeed, research shows that incorrect squat-pooping techniques can worsen hypertonic pelvic floor conditions. The viral squatty potty, which helps users to find the correct posture for defecation actually worsened pelvic floor dysfunction in some users who continued to strain while pooping even while using the squatty potty.

The squatty potty is meant to ease transit for the user by enabling better relaxation. But when a user fails to read the instructions and maintains improper defecation technique, aided by the the increased leverage of the squatty potty it only worsens their condition. Thus, the bathroom habits of the time likely only served to exacerbate hypertonicity in Nietzsche’s pelvic floor.

Did Everyone Else Have This Issue?

Bad pooping habits don’t necessarily create pelvic floor dysfunction. Our toilets in the west today are suboptimal and not everyone here has pelvic floor dysfunction.

In some, there is an onset of constipation (from diet or sickness for example) that initially strains the pelvic floor. This then goes unnoticed by the sufferer and remains indefinitely. Direct injury of some kind could occur as well. In todays era many zoomers are giving themselves pelvic floor dysfunction from improper training in the gym that creates certain muscle imbalances. Others initiate the cascade thru unwise internet behaviors. A general lack of knowledge about the pelvic floor land many a man in this state thru a variety of means.

The key is that the constant clenching is initiated at some point and then as it sets in, the sufferer no longer notices that it’s even happening. The sufferer loses sight of this. Their mind-muscle-connectedness fades as they forget what it feels like to release. It can get progressively worse as time goes on. Failing to relax the pelvic floor causes it to slip away from ones mind. Sometimes, it can get so bad that the person begins to notice and may seek medical treatment, but often your loins just go dormant and the person forgets altogether.

His Other Habits

Nietzsche was a prolific writer and spent long stretches seated writing. Excessive sitting is widely recognized to contribute to hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction. Not much more to say here. One good reason to check in on your own pelvic floor health, do you sit as much as a great german philosopher? Probably more.

On several occasions Nietzsche mentioned to others that he believed his bouts of creative output seemed to worsen his condition. This makes sense, it was exacerbating his pelvic floor dysfunction because he was spending many uninterrupted hours hunched over pen and paper.

Nietzsche also appears to have been under enormous stress throughout his life, no doubt a product of his genius, life circumstances, chronic health issues, and more. Chronic stress is known to worsen hypertonic pelvic floor conditions. That we store chronic stress in the pelvis isn’t even really very much disputed by the normiest of normies.

In all cases, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. I’m not too concerned with determining how Nietzsche developed pelvic floor dysfunction so much as I am concerned with identifying that he did indeed have hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction. And it was definitely not helping his bowel issues, and might have actually been the cause of them.

What About Walking?

Long walks, when done with awareness of the pelvic floor, can help alleviate hypertonicity. However, there’s no evidence Nietzsche was aware of his issue.

As any sufferer can attest, it’s entirely possible to walk while keeping a hypertonic pelvic floor clenched, especially if the dysfunction is so severe that the person isn’t consciously aware of the clenching.

Excessive walks without pelvic floor awareness may have provided temporary relief by increasing blood flow and movement in the area. But, this is far less effective than walking with intentional unclenching in mind. Reason being that working out the pelvic floor via walking only to then allow it to strengthen further without due care for its relaxation afterward is akin to giving oneself DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) of the pelvis over and over.

Nietzsche’s famously long walks likely worsened his condition in the long term, while only occasionally providing immediate constipation relief. A pattern that, if noticed, could be confusing and maddening to a deep thinker desperately trying to find relief.

Why Constipation

We know that Nietzsche complained of many different types of GI issues, why the fixation on constipation? Well, it’s been consistently noted in research and anecdote that resolution of pelvic floor hypertonicity very frequently cures constipation. It’s also been further noted that curing constipation, improving bowel transit time and gut motility, often leads to resolution of other upstream issues. Conditions like SIFO, SIBO, Candida, IBS, many other bowel disorders, and even coated tongue often resolve after constipation is resolved.

This is to say nothing of the many non-gut related issues that can be cured after resolution of chronic constipation. As citation for this claim I refer you once more to Hippocrates.

Intimacy

I am not a Nietzsche expert and would defer to , and others to opine on the validity of the incel claims. But if there’s any truth to them, pelvic floor dysfunction could help explain certain aspects of it.

Constipation leads to cascading GI problems, which are known to disrupt endocrinological function, which could lead to altered body odor, impaired pheromonal production, and much more.

One particular issue is the link between coated tongue (and attendant halitosis) and constipation. A coated tongue makes intimacy challenging for the object of one’s affection. If there’s even a kernel of truth to claims about Nietzsche’s alienation from women, this could help explain some of it.

Furthermore, if he had pelvic floor dysfunction he definitionally had some degree of sexual dysfunction. Chronic clenching of the pelvic floor makes it harder for the penis to remain erect, as it pinches off the cycling of new blood. While a deep clench can offer a short temporary boost to the phallus, as any man can attest, permanent clenching is antithetical to proper sexual functioning.

Lastly, sex can sometimes be a healthy release of the pelvic floor for healthy participants. Many men probably get most of their hip-loosening exercise from sexual activity. These motions can, in a person without pre-existing dysfunction, provide release and exercise to the pelvic floor. But sex can also worsen the condition in those with dysfunction if they are clenching all throughout sex without noticing. If Nietzsche was not having all that much sex, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance to make matters worse or better thru sex.

Psychological

People with chronic hypertonic pelvic floors often report anxiety, neuroticism, and other similar traits. I don’t know if it’s fair to call Nietzsche neurotic, but he was certainly keenly aware of the human condition, a world class noticer for sure. Our lexicon includes phrases “tight ass” and “stick in the mud” that typically portray a person who is too bound up. The term “anal retentive,” was used by Freud to describe a certain personality type. Nietzsche was known to be fastidious about grooming and daily habits. His work reflects the mind of an enormous thinker with a proclivity for deep introspection. Sadly it seems that the health of his loins escaped his notice.

Suppositories and Enemas

Nietzsche is known to have used suppositories and enemas to treat his symptoms. Some level of rectal dilation and relaxation is usually necessary for administration of these, but in a person with a hypertonic pelvic floor, a few brief moments of incidental dilation won’t have much sustained effect and may even worsen things, as the reflexive tightening during these processes further entrains the muscles to clench.

Without knowledge of his hypertonicity, this manual engagement and subsequent encountering of his own hypertonic pelvic floor seems not to have struck him as odd or out of sorts, unsurprising given that he had nothing to compare it to.

Rectal Dilation

What Nietzsche badly needed was to self-administer moderate rectal dilation with a foreign object.

The key to rectal dilation is not really the insertion as such. The important work comes after insertion. Practicing intentional conscious relaxation of the pelvic floor to recover enough mind-muscle-connection to the pelvic floor is the exercise. After initial progress is made, the sufferer can begin to consciously relax even when the object is no longer in place. And then eventually not even need to consciously remember to release, but just automatically do so, becoming fully recovered at this point.

What about Pelvic Floor Therapy?

An entire cottage industry within healthcare overcomplicates hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction out of sheer greed. Anyone with an IQ of 75 and above can cure hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction with a private practice of mindful rectal dilation. The solution for hypertonicity is incredibly simple and requires no medical expertise whatsoever. Noticing your loins is the answer.

As for hypotonicity (too loose), seen in many women after pregnancy, I have no interest and make no claims. But hypotonicity is rarely if ever truly implicated in constipation or general GI distress.

With just a few rectal dilation sessions, Nietzsche might have been able to unlock his true chad potential, but then all of us might have been much poorer for it today. But I have no doubt that Nietzsches powerful mind would’ve relished the task of re-establishing mind-muscle-connectedness with his pelvic floor had he been aware of his dysfunction. I can only stand in wonder at the beautiful aphorisms he might have penned about the wonders of resolving pelvic floor dysfunction.

Bowel disorders are easily treated

The healthcare industrial complex is wont to say that bowel disorders are complex when it seems to this author that most are not complex at all (more on this throughout the life of this publication). An at-home, nearly-free resolution to constipation is easily achieved with moderate rectal dilation used to train the sufferer to recognize and relax his pelvic floor.

Genuine resolution of constipation appears to re-order the functioning of the entire GI tract which usually resolves disturbances higher up the chain. Once normal motility is restored, the food consumed is free to move thru the tract in an optimal fashion, allowing conditions like SIBO, SIFO, IBS, Candida etc. to heal naturally.

When you’re all clenched up down there, the gut cannot function at the right pace. Your GI tract is a series of conveyor belts one after the other. In this analogy, the rectums conveyor belt is running slower than the rest due to friction emanating from the hypertonic pelvic floor.

The packages, the meals you consume, are constantly crashing into one another, building up in all of the wrong places. Restore the bowel-transit and gut motility by releasing the pelvic floor and watch as everything clicks into place rapidly.

Your GI issues are very likely to be pelvic floor related. Gastroenterology want to pretend that this is extremely complicated, but it’s not, just a little funny is all.

To Nietzsche

May you at long last find the relief you deserve sir.

To New Readers

I am just starting my writing career. While I will focus some portion of this publication, To The Cypress Tree, on pelvic floor health etc. (I have a suspicion that most GI issues can be successfully treated in this manner), I also plan to attend to many varieties of subjects that may interest you. Your subscription and/or follow would be very much appreciated.

I am @Cheirophilus on here and on X. But I’ve begun hanging out around here a lot more.

Thanks for reading.

"Something deep inside her unfolded and relaxed, and she was given to a cosmic influence."

— D.H. Lawrence, The Sun, Section II, 1928

You may not have noticed, but if you sit too much, you probably have some level of pelvic floor dysfunction. Men often have some level of hypertonic pelvic floor disorder. Some of you won’t, but most of you might wanna make sure either way.

You’re All Clenched Up

Your pelvic floor muscles are the trapezius muscles for your asshole, it is a part of your cock and balls complex, it surrounds your rectum, it cradles the bladder, it is, in a word, your bottom. And it’s tight, more concretely, it’s dormant and hard like concrete. Your loins are asleep, curled into tight fists. You have some degree of pelvic floor dysfunction.

You unconsciously clench your loins all of the time. This makes your posture terrible. It makes you ugly, it fucks with how you breathe, it’s probably the root of your complex G.I. issues, and it’s not any fun at all. But you’re so deep into some level of pelvic floor dysfunction that you don’t even know you’re in it. You can’t hardly feel that it’s tight.

You wash the dishes and you’re clenching. You workout, okay, tighter clenching. You cum, maybe more clenching. You struggle with bowel movements, perhaps straining will help. But when do you consciously release? Do you even know what it feels like to release anymore? When do you foam roll your assholes traps?

What Is The Pelvic Floor

Your loins are a part of you that make you feel young and vibrant. It’s not just your sex organs, it’s the base of your core. It supports everything about you, and it’s tired of never getting a chance to relax.

Your loins are a complex of muscles at the bottom of your torso that hold you up. Really, you can think of it as your anus, rectum, prostate, penis and all that comes with it down there.

It’s the base of you and it’s the tightest, least mind-muscle-connected part of you. Your problems aren’t downstream of anything, they’re upstream of your asshole traps. Your loins aren’t healthy at all.

You’re Not Gonna Like This Part

How do we heal your pelvic floor dysfunction? Well, like I said, these are the traps of your asshole, that’s how we need to think about them. What can we do with tight traps, that’s right, foam roll them.

How do you foam roll your asshole? Forget sitting on frozen water bottles or grinding lacrosse balls into your ‘glutes,’ half measures are a waste of time. And sure, you can go on r/pelvicfloor and other forums and read for days on end, or you can skip straight to the end. You can do one thing, one time, and see whether it works for you or not. Do you trust me?

Okay, we are going to dilate your asshole anon. Nothing gay about this, this is Sol-Brah level physical therapy plain and simple. Physical Therapy, you are about to do some major PT on your asshole because guys like you wanna be performing optimally don’t you? How well do you really know yourself?

Here’s What You Do

Buy the Silicone Vaginal Dilators - FDA Cleared kit off Amazon. No veins, no glans, nothing Grindr about this at all. These are the most government endorsed, sterile, workmanlike devices available for the task. Maybe Sol-Brah can make a classy teak set, but for now, this will do.

Start with the smallest size in the box. That’s 1“ diameter; do you remember pi? Ya’ll be fine. If you cannot manage it, the problem is severe or you’re being a diva (smaller set here). Put coconut oil on the whole thing, yes even the bottom, the whole thing slathered in coconut oil. Take a deep breath, put a towel down on your office chair, get seated comfortably, and remember to sit up straight young man. Notice the foreign object, begin to breathe deeply, belly in, belly out. 30-60 mins.

You are trying to wake up your loins by noticing them. Your brain will quickly begin to notice. You’re noticing! Notice your loins as they awaken. Work on your computer, type out a substack, scroll a bit, post a banger. Notice, and relax, use the foreign object to feel your way to releasing.

Releeeaassee the tension.

Good Job

Now that it’s cleaned, put away, and forgotten… begin to notice yourself when you involuntarily clench while doing the dishes, when you’re taking a long walk, while you’re sitting in bed. Use what you learned in PT, relax just like you did during PT.

Notice, release, and relax. Repeat PT every other day until satisfied with progress.

What It Might Do

• Fix Your Posture

• Correct Facial Asymmetries

• Treat G.I. Bowel Disorders

• Improve Sexual Function

• Reduce Anxiety

• Improve Salsa Dancing Skills

• Encourage Proper Breathing

• Become A Better Noticer

All Done

You lift weights and stretch, you eat a nutritious diet, you walk plenty and get lots of sunlight, but are you sure you’re noticing yourself down there enough? Are you noticing your loins anon? How well do you really know yourself?

Sources

This post was inspired by this reply by yours truly

And this followup reply

The truth is that this is a way bigger problem for men than women hence this post being directed at men. Most women are cognizant of pelvic floor health, whereas most men are not.

Up Next (Another Time)

• Theory: Gay is oftentimes a behaviorally reinforced initial-health-consequence of undergoing rectal dilation.

• Observation: Great sex is when two people with optimal pelvic floor function have sex.

• Theory: Things like NoFap, IBS, SIBO, SIFO, Candida, and most mental health challenges get the chain of causation wrong.

• Observation: Pelvic floor googling massively overcomplicates things. Skip directly to rectal dilation and don’t waste your time with any other treatment.

Disclaimer

I am mere theoretical scientist for purposes of this piece.

Our country can return to its roots, it’s not too late.